“There are no faster or firmer friendships than those formed between people who love the same books.”

“I spend several years trying to get inside the brain and heart of my subjects, listening to the interior monologues in their letters, and when I have to bridge the chasms between the factual...”

“Even if there is endless documentation, it would be impossible to know what a man thought inside his own mind... This is where the novelist's creative imagination has to take over.”

“An artist without ideas is a mendicant; barren, he goes begging among the hours.”

“We...believe that art is religious, because it is one of man's highest aspirations. There is no such thing as pagan art, only good and bad art.”