Flannery O'Connor Quotes
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...the only thing that makes the Church endurable is that it is somehow the body of Christ and that on this we are fed. It seems to be a fact that you have to suffer as much from the Church as for it but if you believe in the divinity of Christ, you have to cherish the world at the same time that you struggle to endure it.
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The meaning of the story is the story.
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Far be it for me to have worked it out in any abstract way. I don't know why the bull and Mrs. May have to die, or why Mr. Fortune and Mary Fortune: I just feel in my bones that that is the way it has to be. If I had the abstraction first I don't suppose I would write the story.
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If we forget our past, we won't remember our future and it will be as well because we won't have one.
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I distrust pious phrases, especially when they issue from my mouth. I try militantly never to be affected by the pious language of the faithful but it is always coming out when you least expect it. In contrast to the pious language of the faithful, the liturgy is beautifully flat.
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The problem of the novelist who wishes to write about a man's encounter with God is how he shall make the experience--which is both natural and supernatural--understandable, and credible, to his reader. In any age this would be a problem, but in our own, it is a well- nigh insurmountable one. Today's audience is one in which religious feeling has become, if not atrophied, at least vaporous and sentimental.
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There are two qualities that make fiction. One is the sense of mystery and the other is the sense of manners. You get the manners from the texture of existence that surrounds you. The great advantage of being a Southern writer is that we don't have to go anywhere to look for manners; bad or good, we've got them in abundance. We in the South live in a society that is rich in contradiction, rich in irony, rich in contrast, and particularly rich in its speech.
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In most good stories, it is the character's personality that creates the action of the story. If you start with real personality, a real character, then something is bound to happen.
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You shall know the truth, and it will make you odd.
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I come from a family where the only emotion respectable to show is irritation. In some this tendency produces hives, in others literature, in me both.
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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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Writing is like giving birth to a piano sideways. Anyone who perseveres is either talented or nuts.
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Anyone who survives a southern childhood has enough material to last a lifetime.
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Well, if it's a symbol, to hell with it.
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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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Children know by instinct that hell is an absence of love, and they can pick out theirs without missing.
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You get a real person down there and his talking will take care of itself.
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Right now the whole world seems to be going through a dark night of the soul.
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Writing is a good example of self-abandonment. I never completely forget myself except when I am writing and I am never more completely myself than when I am writing.
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Harcourt sent my book to Evelyn Waugh and his comment was: “If this is really the unaided work of a young lady, it is a remarkable product.” My mother was vastly insulted. She put the emphasis on if and lady. Does he suppose you’re not a lady? she says.
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There is a question whether faith can or is supposed to be emotionally satisfying. I must say that the thought of everyone lolling about in an emotionally satisfying faith is repugnant to me. I believe that we are ultimately directed Godward but that this journey is often impeded by emotion.
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Your beliefs will be the light by which you see, but they will not be what you see and they will not be a substitute for seeing.
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Accepting oneself does not preclude an attempt to become better.
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When you leave a man alone with his Bible and the Holy Ghost inspires him, he's going to be a Catholic one way or another, even though he knows nothing about the visible church. His kind of Christianity may not be socially desirable, but will be real in the sight of God.