The old woman was the kind who would not cut down a large old tree because it was a large old tree. — Flannery O'Connor 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
A gift of any kind is a considerable responsibility. It is a mystery in itself, something gratuitous and wholly undeserved, something whose… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
Southern culture has fostered a type of imagination that has been influenced by Christianity of a not too unorthodox kind and by… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
The type of mind that can understand good fiction is not necessarily the educated mind, but it is at all times the… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
Manners are of such great consequence to the novelist that any kind will do. Bad manners are better than no manners at… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
When you leave a man alone with his Bible and the Holy Ghost inspires him, he's going to be a Catholic one… — 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
Behind the newspaper Julian was withdrawing into the inner compartment of his mind where he spent most of his time. This was… — 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
