“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
Technique in the minds of many is something rigid, something like a formula that you impose on the material; but in the… — 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
One of the awful things about writing when you are a Christian is that for you the ultimate reality is the Incarnation,… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
It is popular to believe that in order to see clearly one must believe nothing. This may work well enough if you… — 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
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
People without hope not only don't write novels, but what is more to the point, they don't read them. — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
The idea of being a writer attracts a good many shiftless people, those who are merely burdened with poetic feelings or afflicted… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
“The writer can choose what he writes about but he cannot choose what he is able to make live, and so far… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
When using dialect, use it lightly. A dialect word here and there is enough. All you want to do is suggest. Never… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
Far be it for me to have worked it out in any abstract way. I don't know why the bull and Mrs.… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
I doubt if the texture of Southern life is any more grotesque than that of the rest of the nation, but it… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
You get a real person down there and his talking will take care of itself. — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
“Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them.… — Flannery O'Connor 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 Copy Share Image
If there is no possibility for change in a character, we have no interest in him. — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
The high-school English teacher will be fulfilling his responsibility if he furnishes the student a guided opportunity, through the best writing of… — 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
“Writing this, he had reached the pit of despair and he thought that reading it, she would at least begin to sense… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
“People without hope do not write novels … [Writing fiction] is a plunge into reality and it’s very shocking to the system.… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
There's a certain grain of stupidity that the writer of fiction can hardly do without, and this is the quality of having… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
I don't think literature would be possible in a determined world. We might go through the motions but the heart would be… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
“Art requires a delicate adjustment of the outer and inner worlds in such a way that, without changing their nature, they can… — 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
