Flannery O'Connor Quotes
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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.
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Anyone who survives a southern childhood has enough material to last a lifetime.
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Remember that you don't write a story because you have an idea but because you have a believable character.
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Where there is no belief in the soul, there is very little drama . . . . Either one is serious about salvation or one is not. And it is well to realize that the maximum amount of seriousness admits the maximum amount of comedy. Only if we are secure in our beliefs can we see the comical side of the universe.
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Your criticism sounds to me as if you have read too many critical books and are too smart in an artificial, destructive, and very limited way.
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I write to discover what I know.
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...free will does not mean one will, but many wills conflicting in one man. Freedom cannot be conceived simply.
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If you do the same thing every day at the same time for the same length of time, you'll save yourself from many a sink. Routine is a condition of survival.
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One old lady who wants her head lifted wouldn't be so bad, but you multiply her two hundred and fifty thousand times and what you get is a book club.
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You don't serve God by saying: the Church is ineffective, I'll have none of it. Your pain at its lack of effectiveness is a sign of your nearness to God. We help overcome this lack of effectiveness simply by suffering on account of it.
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I have found, in short, from reading my own writing, that my subject in fiction is the action of grace in territory largely held by the devil.
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Accepting oneself does not preclude an attempt to become better.
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...I have to write to discover what I am doing. Like the old lady, I don't know so well what I think until I see what I say; then I have to say it again.
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Every morning between 9 and 12 I go to my room and sit before a piece of paper. Many times, I just sit for three hours with no ideas coming to me. But I know one thing. If an idea does come between 9 and 12 I am there ready for it.
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We are not judged by what we are basically. We are judged by how hard we use what we have been given. Success means nothing to the Lord.
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It is the business of the artist to uncover the strangeness of truth.
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The old woman was the kind who would not cut down a large old tree because it was a large old tree.
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I know well enough that very few people who are supposedly interested in writing are interested in writing well. They are interested in publishing something, and if possible in making a "killing." They are interested in being a writer not in writing. . . If this is what you are interested in, I am not going to be much use to you.
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The Church's stand on birth control is the most absolutely spiritual of all her stands and with all of us being materialists at heart, there is little wonder that it causes unease. I wish various fathers would quit trying to defend it by saying that the world can support 40 billion. I will rejoice the day when they say: This is right whether we all rot on top of each other or not, dear children, as we certainly may. Either practice restraint or be prepared for crowding.
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If there is no possibility for change in a character, we have no interest in him.
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I believe the teacher's work is largely negative, that it is largely a matter of saying, "This doesn't work because ..." or "This does work because ..." The because is very important. The teacher can help you understand the nature of your medium, and he can guide you in your reading.
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You shall know the truth, and it will make you odd.
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In the first place you can be so absolutely honest and so absolutely wrong at the same time that I think it is better to be a combination of cautious and polite.
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Go warn the children of God of the terrible speed of mercy.