The writer operates at a peculiar crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet. His problem is to find that location. — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
The beginning of human knowledge is through the senses, and the fiction writer begins where the human perception begins. He appeals through… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
I have also led you astray by talking of technique as if it were something that could be separated from the rest… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay. I'm always irritated by… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
I don't have my novel outlined, and I have to write to discover what I am doing. Like the old lady, I… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
Writing is a good example of self-abandonment. I never completely forget myself except when I am writing and I am never more… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
Elizabeth Hardwick told me once that all her first drafts sounded as if a chicken had written them. So do mine for… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
Poorly written novels--no matter how pious and edifying the behavior of the characters--are not good in themselves and are therefore not really… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
I don't think you should write something as long as a novel around anything that is not of the gravest concern to… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
“The novelist makes his statements by selection, and if he is any good, he selects every word for a reason, every detail… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
I have found, in short, from reading my own writing, that my subject in fiction is the action of grace in territory… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
People without hope not only don’t write novels, but what is more to the point, they don’t read them. They don’t take… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
There are two qualities that make fiction. One is the sense of mystery and the other is the sense of manners. You… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
It seems that the fiction writer has a revolting attachment to the poor, for even when he writes about the rich, he… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
...I have to write to discover what I am doing. Like the old lady, I don't know so well what I think… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
“The reader may not see [these meanings], but they have their effect on him nonetheless. This is the way the modern novelist… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
There is no excuse for anyone to write fiction for public consumption unless he has been called to do so by the… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
Every morning between 9 and 12 I go to my room and sit before a piece of paper. Many times, I just… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
“If a writer is any good, what he makes will have its source in a realm much larger than that which his… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
It's always wrong of course to say that you can't do this or you can't do that in fiction. You can do… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
“Wait here, wait here!" he cried and jumped up and began to run for help toward a cluster of lights he saw in the… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share
... the man in the violent situation reveals those qualities least dispensable in his personality, those qualities which are all he will have to… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share
“I don’t know how to cure the source-itis except to tell you that I can discover a good many possible sources myself for Wise… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share
“For the fiction writer himself the whole story is the meaning, because it is an experience, not an abstraction.” — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share
To the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind you draw large and startling figures. — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share
“He felt his hunger no longer as a pain but as a tide. He felt it rising in himself through time and darkness, rising… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share
“Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to never was there, and where you are is no good unless… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share
Technique in the minds of many is something rigid, something like a formula that you impose on the material; but in the best stories… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share
“There are all kinds of truth ... but behind all of them there is only one truth and that is that there's no truth.” — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share
“Mrs. May winced. She thought the word Jesus should be kept inside the church building like other words inside the bedroom.” — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share
I feel that discussing story-writing in terms of plot, character, and theme is like trying to describe the expression on a face by saying… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share
She had observed that the more education they got, the less they could do. Their father had gone to a one-room schoolhouse through the… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share
One of the awful things about writing when you are a Christian is that for you the ultimate reality is the Incarnation, the present… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share
“Hazel Motes sat at a forward angel on the green plush train seat, looking one minute at the window as if he might want… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share
![“The reader may not see [these meanings], but they have their effect on him nonetheless. This is the way the modern novelist sinks, or hides his theme” quote by Flannery O'Connor](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/75b/flannery-o-connor-639_books_the-reader-may-not-see-these-meanings-bu_2981946.png)
