“She knows her own original, fearless, and compassionate mind. What she has, before anything else, is a courageous imagination—one that is bold enough to consider the terrible in human nature without loss of nerve, calm, dignity, or love.”—V. S. Pritchett

“The most impressive aspect of [her work] is the astonishing compassion that enables a white writer, for the first time in Southern fiction, to handle Negro characters with as much ease and justice as those of her own race. This cannot be accounted for stylistically or politically; it seems to stem from an attitude toward life which enables Mrs. McCullers to rise above the pressures of her environment and embrace white and black humanity in one sweep of apprehension and tenderness.”—Richard Wright