William Styron, The Collected Novels Quotes

“outrageously at his temples (by then his need to do something had become like a panic, a fierce drive up ward and outward from his self that had begun to cut like flame through the boozy dreamland, the nit-picking, the inertia, the navel-gazing), said loudly and impatiently: “What do you mean there is not a hope in the world?”
― William Styron, William Styron, The Collected Novels: Lie Down in Darkness, Set This House on Fire, The Confessions of Nat Turner, and Sophie's Choice

“his disease, whatever it was, resided in shadier corners of his soul—where decisions were reached not through reason but by rationalization, and where a thin membranous growth of selfishness always seemed to prevent his decent motives from becoming happy actions.”
― William Styron, William Styron, The Collected Novels: Lie Down in Darkness, Set This House on Fire, The Confessions of Nat Turner, and Sophie's Choice