The writer can choose what he writes about but he cannot choose what he is able to make live. — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
She could never be a saint, but she thought she could be a martyr if they killed her quick. — Flannery O'Connor Martyr Copy Share Image
So many people can now write competent stories that the short story is in danger of dying of competence. — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
...you have to cherish the world at the same time that you struggle to endure it. — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
The only way, I think, to learn to write short stories is to write them, and then try to discover what you… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
I am not afraid that the book will be controversial, I'm afraid it will not be controversial. — Flannery O'Connor Book Copy Share Image
The basic experience of everyone is the experience of human limitation. — Flannery O'Connor Experience Copy Share Image
“Everywhere I go, I am asked if I think university stifles writers. My opinion is that it doesn't stifle enough of them.” — Flannery O'Connor Education Copy Share Image
I was a very ancient twelve; my views at that age would have done credit to a Civil War veteran. I am… — Flannery O'Connor Age Copy Share Image
Everywhere I go, I'm asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them.… — Flannery O'Connor Education Copy Share Image
The fact is that anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
It is hard to make your adversaries real people unless you recognize yourself in them - in which case, if you don't… — Flannery O'Connor Adversaries Copy Share Image
The less self-conscious you are about what you are about, the better in a way, that is to say technically. You have… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
The novelist is required to open his eyes on the world around him and look. If what he sees is not highly… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
Your criticism sounds to me as if you have read too many critical books and are too smart in an artificial, destructive,… — Flannery O'Connor Book Copy Share Image
Whenever I’m asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
“Listen, lady," he said in a high voice, "if I had of been there I would of known and I wouldn't be… — Flannery O'Connor Grandmother Copy Share Image
One of the effects of modern liberal Protestantism has been gradually to turn religion into poetry and therapy, to make truth vaguer… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
“No,” he said. Then he drew breath and said, “You got a nice place here. It’s a nice part of the country.… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
But learned people can analyze for me why I fear hell and their implication is that there is no hell. But I… — 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 Books 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
There is a question whether faith can or is supposed to be emotionally satisfying. I must say that the thought of everyone… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
Even in the life of a Christian, faith rises and falls like the tides of an invisible sea. It's there, even when… — Flannery O'Connor Christian Copy Share Image
“The scientist has the habit of science; the artist, the habit of art.” — Flannery O'Connor Art Copy Share Image
“To his mind, an opportunity to insult a successful ape cam from the hand of Providence.” — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
I think it is safe to say that while the South is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted. — Flannery O'Connor Christ Copy Share Image
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
It began to drizzle rain and he turned on the windshield wipers; they made a great clatter like two idiots clapping in… — Flannery O'Connor Church Copy Share Image
Children know by instinct that hell is an absence of love, and they can pick out theirs without missing. — Flannery O'Connor Absence Copy Share Image
I am much younger now than I was at twelve or anyway, less burdened. — 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
The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it. — Flannery O'Connor Ability Copy Share Image
“Don’t let me ever think, dear God, that I was anything but the instrument for Your story-just like the typewriter was mine.” — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
“Remember what you won't get if you don't mind," her grandfather remarked.” — Flannery O'Connor Grandfather Copy Share Image
... the main concern of the fiction writer is with mystery as it is incarnated in human life. — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
“The grandmother decided that she would not mention that the house was in Tennessee.” — Flannery O'Connor Grandmother Copy Share Image
It is the business of the artist to uncover the strangeness of truth — Flannery O'Connor Art Copy Share Image
“When something is finished, it cannot be possessed. Nothing can be possessed but the struggle.” — Flannery O'Connor Creativity Copy Share Image
You get a real person down there and his talking will take care of itself. — Flannery O'Connor Care Copy Share Image
