Taylor Caldwell Quotes

I was talking to a woman last night. I said, “I’m not like other people.” She started to giggle. Then I raised my voice and said evenly, “That’s one blessing God gave writers — they’re not like other people!”

Antonius [i. e., C. Antonius Hybrida] heartily agreed with him [i. e., M. Tullius Cicero] that the budget should be balanced, that the Treasury should be refilled, that public debt should be reduced, that the arrogance of the generals should be tempered and controlled, that assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt, that the mobs should be forced to work and not depend on government for subsistence, and that prudence and frugality should be put into practice as soon as possible.

This world’s brought me very little joy, very little satisfaction. It’s brought me nothing but tragedy from the time I was born. I regret every day I live. The human situation is not as unique as you think it is. We’re all the same. We all get kicked in the pants, we all have our moments of elation — though not much happiness. Happiness is a child’s word. There may be short periods of contentment, but very short. Life is mostly disappointment, tragedy, loss and failure.

I don’t know how I’ve survived the onslaughts of the government. It almost makes me believe in the Deity. I’m a Catholic, but I’m a Catholic-atheist, because the tragedies in life have overwhelmed me.

The ancient traditions entertain the possibility of the eventual remorse of the spirit of Evil and its reconciliation with God. Who is to say? In the book of Job Lucifer always presents himself before the Lord as “one of the sons of God,” and implies that he is not God’s enemy but man’s, and that he is the prosecutor of man before God, the witness to his crimes, the denouncer who demands the extreme punishment of eternal death for the blasphemy of man’s existence. Man’s little imagination has presented him in horrific apparitions, some of them absurd and jejune, horned and hoofed, yet he was the greatest, most powerful and most resplendent of the archangels and is still an archangel. To denigrate him as a ridiculous figure, and ugly and paltry, is wrong, and does a disservice to God Who can create nothing ugly — only man can do that — and in the belittling of Lucifer there is a great danger. Evil is nothing to belittle, nor the anguish of Evil. Lucifer, as the Holy Bible states, is Prince of this World, and certainly he cannot be as hideous as the other self-proclaimed “princes” we have seen in this century, and in past centuries. And his power is only a little less than the power of the Almighty, and has its expression only in Man.

I read the book of Job over and over. Poor Job. He was afflicted. According to the Bible, he was a just man. But Satan said, “You put your finger on him, and injure him, and he won’t be such a just, devout man.” So God said to Satan, “Do anything you want with him, but spare his life.” And so he was afflicted. His children deserted him — he lost everything. He was reduced to sackcloth and ashes. Even his wife said, “Curse God and die.” But he didn’t. But he did rebuke God. He said, “I’ve lived a devout life. Worshipped You. I was just to my fellow man. Accomplished all I could in Your name. Look what’s happened.” And God answered him, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the world? Where were you when I created the galaxies and the universes? Answer as a man! Gird up your loins and answer as a man!” That’s the subject of my next book.

It is a stern fact of history that no nation that rushed to the abyss ever turned back. Not ever, in the long history of the world. We are now on the edge of the abyss. Can we, for the first time in history, turn back? It is up to you.

To eliminate sex from a book is to eliminate the great creative force in the world. Out of the sexual instinct rises all the art, you know. … No eunuch ever wrote a book.

From my early childhood Lucanus, or Luke, the great Apostle, has obsessed my mind. He was the only Apostle who was not a Jew. He never saw Christ. All that is written in his eloquent but restrained Gospel he acquired from hearsay, from witnesses, from the Mother of Christ, from disciples, and from the Apostles. His first visit to Israel took place almost a year after the Crucifixion. Yet he became one of the greatest of the Apostles. Like Saul of Tarsus, later to be known as Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, he believed that Our Lord came not only to the Jews but to the Gentiles, also. He had much in common with Paul, because Paul too had never seen the Christ. Each had had an individual revelation. These two men had difficulty with the original Apostles because the latter stubbornly believed for a considerable time that Our Lord was incarnated, and died, only for the salvation of the Jews, even after Pentecost. Why has St. Luke always obsessed me, and why have I always loved him from childhood? I do not know. I can only quote Friedrich Nietzsche on this matter: "One hears — one does not seek; one does not ask who gives — I have never had any choice about it."

About half of my published novels were written before I was published. So I didn’t write a book every two years, as some people think. Writing — I exist only for that. It’s the most important thing in my life. It’s not apart from me. I have no other interests, except cooking. I don’t belong to any organizations, clubs — I don’t go to lunches. This is my life, the most important thing — far more important than anything else I do. It has to be that way, otherwise you’re just a hobbyist. Now, a painter needs only to know the technique of his painting, and he has to have a tremendous emotional response to it. Musicians, sculptors — the same way. But they don’t have to know about everything. A writer does.

You’ve got to look at life clearly. No rose-colored glasses. The human race is not very admirable. It was a big mistake of God’s . . . The more I see of people, the more bitter I become. I think I appeal to readers because there’s nothing false or hypocritical in what I write. And they recognize themselves, and recognize their fears. And they know what bastards they are.

Learning … should be a joy and full of excitement. It is life's greatest adventure; it is an illustrated excursion into the minds of noble and learned men, not a conducted tour through a jail. So its surroundings should be as gracious as possible, to complement it.

I don’t like women. I never did. That’s why I don’t belong to women’s lib. Most of my relatives were male. Women are the inferior sex. There’s no doubt about it — women are the inferior sex, in every way. There’s never been any woman genius — never. With all the opportunity in the world — all the leisure in the world, all the shelter — if women had any genius, it would’ve come out. It never did. There’s been no woman Michelangelo, or Beethoven, or Mozart.