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.
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.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem, in instructing catechumens, wrote: “The dragon sits by the side of the road, watching those who pass. Beware lest he devour you. We go to the Father of Souls, but it is necessary to pass by the dragon.” No matter what form the dragon may take, it is of this mysterious passage past him, or into his jaws, that stories of any depth will always be concerned to tell, and this being the case, it requires considerable courage at any time, in any country, not to turn away from the storyteller.
I suppose half of writing is overcoming the revulsion you feel when you sit down to it.
You can't clobber any reader while he's looking. You divert his attention, then you clobber him and he never knows what hit him.
The only way to the truth is through blasphemy.
To expect too much is to have a sentimental view of life and this is a softness that ends in bitterness.
Policy and politics generally go contrary to principle.
I think it is safe to say that while the South is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted.
The way to despair is to refuse to have any kind of experience.
Most of us come to the church by a means the church does not allow.
Go warn the children of God of the terrible speed of mercy.
When there is a tendency to compartmentalize the spiritual and make it resident in a certain type of life only, the spiritual is apt gradually to be lost.
I am very handy with my advice and then when anybody appears to be following it, I get frantic.
I am a Catholic not like someone else would be a Baptist or a Methodist, but like someone else would be an atheist.
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.
The operation of the Church is entirely set up for the sinner; which creates much misunderstanding among the smug.” (August 9, 1955)
A gift of any kind is a considerable responsibility. It is a mystery in itself, something gratuitous and wholly undeserved, something whose real uses will probably always be hidden from us.
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.
It's always wrong of course to say that you can't do this or you can't do that in fiction. You can do anything you can get away with, but nobody has ever gotten away with much.
You have to quit confusing a madness with a mission.
I'm a full-time believer in writing habits...You may be able to do without them if you have genius but most of us only have talent and this is simply something that has to be assisted all the time by physical and mental habits or it dries up and blows awayOf course you have to make your habits in this conform to what you can do. I write only about two hours every day because that's all the energy I have, but I don't let anything interfere with those two hours, at the same time and the same place.
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
When in Rome, do as you done in Milledgeville.
Dogma can in no way limit a limitless God.
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