Flannery Quotes

Hell, I don't break the soil periodically to 'reaffirm my status'. I do it because archeology is still the most fun you can have with your pants on. ~ Kent V. Flannery

As long as scepticism is based on a sound understanding of science it is invaluable, for that is how science progresses. But poor criticism can lead those who are unfamiliar with the science involved into doubting everything about climate change predictions. ~ Tim Flannery

In my travels I am often asked if college stifles young writers. In my opinion, it doesn't stifle them enough. ~ Flannery O'Connor

It is a sign of maturity ... to find explanations in charity. ~ Flannery O'Connor

The novelist is required to open his eyes on the world around him and look. If what he sees is not highly edifying, he is still required to look. Then he is required to reproduce, with words, what he sees. ~ Flannery O'Connor

Most things are beyond me," Block said. "I ain't found anything yet that I thoroughly understood, ~ Flannery O'Connor

If you want to get anywhere in religion, you got to keep it sweet. ~ Flannery O'Connor

The virtue of hope, in Enoch, was made up of two parts suspicion and one part lust. ~ Flannery O'Connor

If he looks at me like that again Dottie will need a bucket and mop to get me back to my room. ~ Gwenn Wright

The child came to a stop beside her mother and stared up at her face as if she had never seen it before. It was the face of the new misery she felt, but on her mother it looked old and it looked as if it might have belonged to anybody, a Negro or a European or to Powell himself. The child turned her head quickly, and past the Negroe's ambling figures she could see the column of smoke rising and widening unchecked inside the granite line of trees. She stood taut, listening, and could just catch in the distance a few wild high shrieks of joy as if the prophets were dancing in the fiery furnace, in the circle the angel had cleared for them. ~ Flannery O'Connor

For those who turn to literary biography for salacious details, 'Flannery' will disappoint. It is the biography of someone who had very little chance to live in the conventional sense, to experience events. ~ Floyd Skloot

I feel that whatever virtues the novel may have are very much connected with the limitations you mention. I am not writing a conventional novel, and I think that the quality of the novel I write will derive precisely from the peculiarity or aloneness, if you will, of the experience I write from. ~ Flannery O'Connor

It does not take much to make us realize what fools we are, but the little it takes is long in coming. ~ Flannery O'Connor

The writer operates at a peculiar crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet. His problem is to find that location. ~ Flannery O'Connor

From 15 to 18 is an age at which one is very sensitive to the sins of others, as I know from recollections of myself. At that age you don't look for what is hidden. It is a sign of maturity not to be scandalized and to try to find explanations in charity. ~ Flannery O'Connor

Anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic. ~ Flannery O'Connor

The meaning of fiction is not abstract meaning but experienced meaning. ~ Flannery O'Connor

Accepting oneself does not preclude an attempt to become better. ~ Flannery O'Connor

I don't have a lot of time. I can give a poem a couple of lines, a short story a paragraph, and a novel a few pages, then if I can stop reading without a sense of loss, I do, and I go on to something else. ~ Flannery O'Connor

He was singing a hillbilly song that sounded half like a love song and half like a hymn. ~ Flannery O'Connor

Ours is the first age in history which has asked the child what he would tolerate learning. ~ Flannery O'Connor

Man's desire for God is bedded in his unconscious & seeks to satisfy itself in physical possession of another human. This necessarily is a passing, fading attachment in its sensuous aspects since it is a poor substitute for what the unconscious is after. ~ Flannery O'Connor

That belief in Christ is to some a matter of life and death has been a stumbling block for readers who would prefer to think it a matter of no great consequence. ~ Flannery O'Connor

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.
I have also found that what I write is read by an audience which puts little stock either in grace or the devil. You discover your audience at the same time and in the same way that you discover your subject, but it is an added blow. ~ Flannery O'Connor

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. ~ Flannery O'Connor

I never understand how writers can succumb to vanity - what you work the hardest on is usually the worst. ~ Flannery O'Connor

At his desk, pen in hand, none was more articulate than Thomas. As soon as he found himself shut into the car with Sarah Ham, terror seized his tongue. ~ Flannery O'Connor

The last thing I would want is for Monbiot, Mann, Flannery, Jones, Hansen and the rest of the Climate rogues' gallery to be granted the mercy of quick release. Publicly humiliated? Yes please. Having all their crappy books remaindered? Definitely. Dragged away from their taxpayer funded troughs and their cushy sinecures, to be replaced by people who actually know what they're talking about? For sure. But hanging? Hell no. Hanging is far too good for such ineffable toerags. ~ James Delingpole

True culture is in the mind, the mind," he said, and tapped his head, "the mind." "It's in the heart," she said, "and in how you do things and how you do things is because of who you are." "Nobody in the damn bus cares who you are." "I care who I am," she said icily. ~ Flannery O'Connor

Manners are of such great consequence to the novelist that any kind will do. Bad manners are better than no manners at all, and because we are losing our customary manners, we are probably overly conscious of them; this seems to be a condition that produces writers. ~ Flannery O'Connor

Remember what you won't get if you don't mind, her grandfather remarked. ~ Flannery O'Connor

As for the writers who have influenced me they are many. Hemingway, Chandler, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Charles Beaumont, William Goldman, Flannery O'Conner, Carson McCullers, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and so many others. As a kid Kipling and Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Robert E. Howard. ~ Joe R. Lansdale

Poetry is always dependent on realism, that you have to be a realist or you can't be a poet. Mrs. ~ Flannery O'Connor

Sitting with him was like sitting by yourself; he didn't talk except when it suited him. You asked him a question in the morning and he might answer in the afternoon, or he might never. ~ Flannery O'Connor

Fiction is about everything human and we are made out of dust, and if you scorn getting yourself dusty, then you shouldn't try to write fiction. It's not a grand enough job for you. ~ Flannery O'Connor

I can smell the sin on your breath. ~ Flannery O'Connor

The Liberal approach is that man has never fallen, never incurred guilt, and is ultimately perfectible by his own efforts. Therefore, evil in this light is a problem of better housing, sanitation, health, etc. and all mysteries will eventually be cleared up. ~ Flannery O'Connor

It is a good deal easier for most people to state an abstract idea than to describe and thus re-create some object they actually see. ~ Flannery O'Connor

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. ~ Flannery O'Connor

When a book leaves your hands, it belongs to God. He may use it to save a few souls or to try a few others, but I think that for the writer to worry is to take over God's business. ~ Flannery O'Connor

I don't think you should write something as long as a novel around anything that is not of the gravest concern to you and everybody else and for me this is always the conflict between an attraction for the Holy and the disbelief in it that we breathe in with the air of the times. ~ Flannery O'Connor

On the subject of the feminist business, I just never think ... of qualities which are specifically feminine or masculine. I suppose I divide people into two classes: the Irksome and the Non-Irksome without regard to sex. Yes and there are the Medium Irksome and the Rare Irksome. ~ Flannery O'Connor

The high-school English teacher will be fulfilling his responsibility if he furnishes the student a guided opportunity, through the best writing of the past, to come, in time, to an understanding of the best writing of the present. He will teach literature, not social studies or little lessons in democracy or the customs of many lands. And if the student finds that this is not to his taste? Well, that is regrettable. Most regrettable. His taste should not be consulted; it is being formed. ~ Flannery O'Connor

When using dialect, use it lightly. A dialect word here and there is enough. All you want to do is suggest. Never let it call attention to itself. ~ Flannery O'Connor

No one can be an atheist who does not know all things. Only God is an atheist. The devil is the greatest believer and he has his reasons. ~ Flannery O'Connor

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. ~ Flannery O'Connor

All my stories are about the action of grace on a character who is not very willing to support it, but most people think of these stories as hard, hopeless and brutal. ~ Flannery O'Connor

I don't have to run from anything because I don't believe in anything. ~ Flannery O'Connor

Everything that gave her pleasure was small and depressed him. ~ Flannery O'Connor

Archaeology is the only branch of Anthropology where we kill our informants in the process of studying them. ~ Kent V. Flannery

The grandmother decided that she would not mention that the house was in Tennessee. ~ Flannery O'Connor

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

The writer, without softening his vision, is obliged to capture or conjure readers. And this means any kind of reader. It means whatever is there. I used to think that it should be possible to write for some supposed elite, for the people who attend the universities and sometimes know how to read, but I have since found that though you may publish your stories in the Yale Review, if they are any good at all you are eventually going to get a letter from some old lady in California, or some inmate of the Federal Penitentiary, or the state in sane asylum, or the local poorhouse, telling you where you have failed to meet his needs. And his need of course is to be lifted up. There is something in us as story-tellers, and as listeners to stories, that demands the redemptive act, that demands that what falls at least be offered the chance of restoration. The reader of today looks for this motion, and rightly so, but he has forgotten the cost of it. His sense of evil is deluded or lacking altogether, and so he has forgotten the price of restoration. He has forgotten the price of truth, even in fiction. ~ Flannery O'Connor

The fact is that anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days. If you can't make something out of a little experience, you probably won't be able to make it out of a lot. ~ Flannery O'Connor

She felt that she would have to be much more than just a doctor or an engineer. She would have to be a saint ... ~ Flannery O'Connor

The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor ~ Dean Koontz

There is something in us, as storytellers and as listeners to stories, that demands the redemptive act, that demands that what falls at least be offered the chance to be restored. The reader of today looks for this motion, and rightly so, but what he has forgotten is the cost of it. His sense of evil is diluted or lacking altogether, and so he has forgotten the price of restoration. When he reads a novel, he wants either his sense tormented or his spirits raised. He wants to be transported, instantly, either to mock damnation or a mock innocence. ~ Flannery O'Connor

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. ~ Flannery O'Connor

He was pleased that she should see death in his face at once. His mother, at the age of sixty, was going to be introduced to reality and he supposed that if the experience didn't kill her, it would assist her in the process of growing up. He stepped down and greeted her. ~ Flannery O'Connor

The meaning of the story is the story. ~ Flannery O'Connor

She would've been a good woman," said The Misfit, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life. ~ Flannery O'Connor

I once received a letter from an old lady in California who informed me that when the tired reader comes home at night, he wishes to read something that will lift up his heart. And it seems her heart had not been lifted up by anything of mine she had read. I think that if her heart had been in the right place, it would have been lifted up. ~ Flannery O'Connor

You shall know the truth, and it will make you odd. ~ Flannery O'Connor

The writer is initially set going by literature more than by life. ~ Flannery O'Connor

I love Tig Notaro; I just think she's so awesome. ~ Kate Flannery

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. ~ Flannery O'Connor

Christianity is a strangely cheery religion. ~ Flannery O'Connor

We hear a great deal of lamentation these days about writers having all taken themselves to the colleges and universities where they live decorously instead of going out and getting firsthand information about life. The fact is that anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days. If you can't make something out of a little experience, you probably won't be able to make it out of a lot. The writer's business is to contemplate experience, not to be merged in it. ~ Flannery O'Connor

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

The type of mind that can understand good fiction is not necessarily the educated mind, but it is at all times the kind of mind that is willing to have its sense of mystery deepened by contact with reality, and its sense of reality deepened by contact with mystery. ~ Flannery O'Connor

Give me the grace to be impatient for the time when I shall see You face to face and need no stimulus than that to adore You. ~ Flannery O'Connor

The Bible was the only book he read. He didn't read it often but when he did he wore his mother's glasses. They tired his eyes so that after a short time he was always obliged to stop. ~ Flannery O'Connor

I think there is no suffering greater than what is caused by the doubts of those who want to believe. I know what torment this is, but I can only see it, in myself anyway, as the process by which faith is deepened. A faith that just accepts is a child's faith and all right for children, but eventually you have to grow religiously as every other way, though some never do.
What people don't realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross. It is much harder to believe than not to believe. If you fell you can't believe, you must at least do this: keep an open mind. Keep it open toward faith, keep wanting it, keep asking for it, and leave the rest to God. ~ Flannery O'Connor

Art transcends its limitations only by staying within them. ~ Flannery O'Connor

One of the awful things about writing when you are a Christian is that for you the ultimate reality is the Incarnation, the present reality is the Incarnation, and nobody believes in the Incarnation; that is, nobody in your audience. My audience are the people who think God is dead. At least these are the people I am conscious of writing for. ~ Flannery O'Connor

Conviction without experience makes for harshness. ~ Flannery O'Connor

The idea of being a writer attracts a good many shiftless people, those who are merely burdened with poetic feelings or afflicted with sensibility. ~ Flannery O'Connor

Give me the courage to stand the pain to get the grace. ~ Flannery O'Connor

I was a very ancient twelve; my views at that age would have done credit to a Civil War veteran. I am much younger now than I was at twelve or anyway, less burdened. The weight of the centuries lies on children, I'm sure of it. ~ Flannery O'Connor

I have a one-legged friend and I asked her what they said to John at the gate. She said she reckoned they said, "The lame shall enter first." This may be because the lame will be able to knock everybody else aside with their crutches. ~ Flannery O'Connor

Flannery O'Connor, in a note to the editor of "Wise Blood" that pertained to changes he wanted to make, wrote "Perhaps I am prematurely arrogant ... ~ Flannery O'Connor

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 where the eyes, nose, and mouth are. ~ Flannery O'Connor

I cannot believe that in all the years that there have been female stand-ups, there has never been a show just for them. ~ Kate Flannery

Flannery O'Connor's writing is quite dark, but it is so because she believes in the Devil, and in the Fall, and in humanity as it is. Novels that avoid the horror of human existence in this time between Eden and New Jerusalem can reinforce a Christian's tendency to Pelagianism. The Christian gospel isn't "clean" and "safe" and "family-friendly." It comes to its narrative climax at a bloody Place of the Skull and in a borrowed grave. ~ Russell D. Moore

Lady," The Misfit said, looking beyond her far into the woods, "there never was a body that give the undertaker a tip. ~ Flannery O'Connor

Dogma can in no way limit a limitless God. ~ Flannery O'Connor

I feel about Flannery O'Connor the same way that terrible people feel about Ayn Rand. ~ Ken Jennings

There is nothing like being pleased with your own work - and this is the best stage - before it is published and begins to be misunderstood. ~ Flannery O'Connor

The theologian is interested specifically in the modern novel because there he sees reflected the man of our time, the unbeliever, who is nevertheless grappling in a desperate and usually honest way with intense problems of the spirit. ~ Flannery O'Connor

The longer you look at one object, the more of the world you see in it. ~ Flannery O'Connor

Lenders make their choices with clear preferences: "Africans first, women first, and agriculture first" (Flannery, ~ Anke Schwittay

For me it is the virgin birth, the Incarnation, the resurrection which are the true laws of the flesh and the physical. Death, decay, destruction are the suspension of these laws. I am always astonished at the emphasis the Church puts on the body. It is not the soul she says that will rise but the body, glorified. ~ Flannery O'Connor

Two people can remain "in love"
a phrase made practically useless by stinking romanticism
only if their common desire for each other unites in a greater desire for God. ~ Flannery O'Connor

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 ... ~ Flannery O'Connor

When he was four years old, his father had brought him home a tin box from the penitentiary. It was orange and had a picture of some peanut brittle on the outside of it and green letters that said, "A NUTTY SURPRISE!" When Enoch had opened it, a coiled piece of steel had sprung out at him and broken off the ends of his two front teeth. His life was full of so many happenings like that that it would seem he should have been more sensitive to his times of danger. ~ Flannery O'Connor

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 ~ Flannery O'Connor

The woods are full of regional writers, and it is the great horror of every serious Southern writer that he will become one of them. ~ Flannery O'Connor

She appeared to adore Thomas's repugnance to her and to draw it out of him every chance she got as if it added delectably to her martyrdom. ~ Flannery O'Connor

The writer has no rights at all except those he forges for himself inside his own work. We have become so flooded with sorry fiction based on unearned liberties, or on the notion that fiction must represent the typical, that in the public mind the deeper kinds of realism are less and less understandable. ~ Flannery O'Connor

Many of the novelists I admire never left their hometown. Look at Flannery O'Connor. So many of the great Russians never left Russia. Shakespeare never left England. The list goes on. ~ Jhumpa Lahiri