Flannery O'Connor Quotes
Once the process [of conversion] is begun and continues...you are continually turning inward toward God and away from your own egocentricity...you have to see this selfish side of yourself in order to turn away from it. I measure God by everything I am not. I begin with that.
Quotes to Explore
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Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know.
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In any art, you don't know in advance what you want to say - it's revealed to you as you say it. That's the difference between art and illustration.
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When I was 8 or 9, I started using bulletin board systems, which was the precursor to the Internet, where you'd dial into... a shared system and shared computers. I've had an email address since the late '80s, when I was 8 or 9 years old, and then I got on the Internet in '93 when it was first starting out.
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There's such a pressure on women that we put on ourselves and everyone else puts on us to look unrealistic and everything, but you just can't compare yourself to people in magazines.
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I was obsessed with the idea of going to college. And I took many years off after that, so I sort of missed the weird, crazy transition that was what making movies was in the nineties to what's happening now.
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I don't want to say anything because I know I am unable to protect you from the harm that I see.
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Sometimes in someone's gestures you can notice how a parent is somehow inhabiting that person without there being any awareness of that. Sometimes you can look at your hand and see your father.
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The older I get, the more I realize the importance of maintaining an even temperament - not getting too emotional, focusing on the task at hand. You don't want to make a business deal based on your emotions.
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Don't sell credits; don't sell walk-on roles... If people want to back you, they'll back you. But if you have to entice people will walk-on roles and crazy credits, you're undermining yourself.
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Doing collections, doing fashion is like a non-stop dialogue.
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The first time you meet someone, the conversation is sort of on life support. You're just trying to live another moment in the life of the conversation.
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I don't really go out at night in terms of noisy, busy places; I prefer more of a quiet corner somewhere.
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I loved Judy Garland. I thought she was such a classic beauty. I thought she was so endearing and charming, and I loved her voice. She was such a dreamer, and I think I was, too - and I am.
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With every film, I try and give the audiences a little more than the previous film in terms of comedy, action, drama and so on.
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Some writers are so enthralled by ideas (one thinks of Doris Lessing) that their characters become debaters, and their fables approach allegory.
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If you are being weird or silly you can be excused because you are just playing a character.
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This is Earth. Isn't it hot?
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I believe that, too, it's hard to believe that anybody could not believe that.
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I can do a book in three months if I spend all day, seven days a week at it and, in fact, I work better that way.
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The individual under socialism, despite apparent standardization, is more complete.
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Because I say what is empirically true: nothing exists except God, I am deemed to be insane. (ibid, p. 28)
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Literary texts do not exist on bookshelves: they are processes of signification materialized only in the practice of reading. For literature to happen, the reader is quite as vital as the author.
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Once the process [of conversion] is begun and continues...you are continually turning inward toward God and away from your own egocentricity...you have to see this selfish side of yourself in order to turn away from it. I measure God by everything I am not. I begin with that.
