If there is no possibility for change in a character, we have no interest in him. — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
Purity strikes me as the most mysterious of the virtues and the more I think about it the less I know about… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
“Virtue must be the only vigorous thing in our lives. Sin is large and stale. You can never finish eating it nor… — 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
All my stories are about the action of grace on a character who is not very willing to support it, but most… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
I feel that discussing story-writing in terms of plot, character, and theme is like trying to describe the expression on a face… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
In most good stories, it is the character's personality that creates the action of the story. If you start with real personality,… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
I find that most people know what a story is until they sit down to write one. Then they find themselves writing… — 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 Image
... 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 Image
“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 Image
“For the fiction writer himself the whole story is the meaning, because it is an experience, not an abstraction.” — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
To the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind you draw large and startling figures. — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
