If there were no hell, we would be like the animals. No hell, no dignity. — Flannery O'Connor Animal Copy Share Image
The Southerner is usually tolerant of those weaknesses that proceed from innocence. — Flannery O'Connor Innocence Copy Share Image
She looked at nice young men as if she could smell their stupidity. — Flannery O'Connor Men Copy Share Image
“The formality that is left in the South now is quite dead and done for of course.” — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
“...what they have to say about themselves makes me think that there is a lot of ill-directed good in them.” — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
“Some of us have taken off our blindfolds and see that there’s nothing to see. It’s a kind of salvation.” — Flannery O'Connor Blind Copy Share Image
“You might as well go one place as another," he said. "That's all I know.” — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
“Yet she could see by their shocked and altered faces that even their virtues were being burned away.” — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
I know that the writer does call up the general and maybe the essential through the particular, but this general and essential… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
“Flannery O'Connor, in a note to the editor of "Wise Blood" that pertained to changes he wanted to make, wrote "Perhaps I… — Flannery O'Connor Arrogance Copy Share Image
I preach there are all kinds of truth, your truth and somebody else's. But behind all of them there is only one… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
Anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in… — Flannery O'Connor Books Copy Share Image
“Dear God please give me some place, no matter how small, but let me know it and keep it. If I am… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
“Our spiritual character is formed as much by what we endure and what is taken from us as it is by our… — Flannery O'Connor Religion Copy Share Image
You don't serve God by saying: the Church is ineffective, I'll have none of it. Your pain at its lack of effectiveness… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
When you can state the theme of a story, when you can separate it from the story itself, then you can be… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
“I hope you don’t have friends who recommend Ayn Rand to you. The fiction of Ayn Rand is as low as you… — Flannery O'Connor Ayn-rand Copy Share Image
“Two people can remain 'in love'—a phrase made practically useless by stinking romanticism—only if their common desire for each other unites in… — Flannery O'Connor Love Copy Share Image
“The reality of death has come upon us and a consciousness of the power of God has broken our complacency like a… — Flannery O'Connor Death Copy Share Image
We lost our innocence in the Fall, and our turn to it is through the Redemption which was brought about by Christ's… — Flannery O'Connor Christ Copy Share Image
“She could not make up her mind what would be inside his head and what out. She thought of her own head… — Flannery O'Connor Heart Copy Share Image
There was a time when the average reader read a novel simply for the moral he could get out of it, and… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
“My mamma and I have interesting literary discussions like the following which took place over some Modern Library books that I had… — Flannery O'Connor Idiot 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… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
If there is no possibility for change in a character, we have no interest in him. — Flannery O'Connor Change Copy Share Image
I think there is no suffering greater than what is caused by the doubts of those who want to believe. — 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. — Flannery O'Connor Books Copy Share Image
The fiction writer has to engage in a continual examination of conscience. He has to be aware of the freak in himself. — Flannery O'Connor Conscience Copy Share Image
To the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind you draw large and startling figures. — Flannery O'Connor Blind Copy Share Image
I have what passes for an education in this day and time, but I am not deceived by it. — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
Knowing who you are is good for one generation only. You haven't the foggiest idea where you stand now or who you… — Flannery O'Connor Generation Copy Share Image
Anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days. — Flannery O'Connor Childhood Copy Share Image
I am interested in making up a good case for distortion, as I am coming to believe it is the only way… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
“No one can be an atheist who does not know all things. Only God is an atheist.” — Flannery O'Connor Atheist Copy Share Image
In my travels I am often asked if college stifles young writers. In my opinion, it doesn't stifle them enough. — Flannery O'Connor College Copy Share Image
“Anyone who has lived to the age of eighteen has enough stories to last a lifetime.” — Flannery O'Connor Lifetime Copy Share Image
“The virtue of hope, in Enoch, was made up of two parts suspicion and one part lust.” — Flannery O'Connor Hope Copy Share Image
Total non-retention has kept my education from being a burden to me. — Flannery O'Connor Burden Copy Share Image
the writer is initially set going by literature more than by life. — Flannery O'Connor Books Copy Share Image
Writing is like giving birth to a piano sideways. Anyone who perseveres is either talented or nuts. — Flannery O'Connor Birth Copy Share Image
