Influence is a very tenuous matter. I try to avoid it in every respect. I don't want to be influenced by anybody.

I think acceptance of human rights is going to progress from one day to the next. I don't think there's going to be any violent revolution about the whole thing anywhere. Of course, it looks like it every once in a while. You hear about it on television and in newspapers: riots here and there. But that is a passing phase.

To me there is no such thing as creative writing. It's either good writing, whatever the subject, or it's not creative.

Many Southern writers must have learned the art of storytelling from listening to oral tales. I did. It gave me the knowledge that the simplest incident can make a story.