Flannery O'Connor Quotes - Page 8

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• Behind the newspaper Julian was withdrawing into the inner compartment of his mind where he spent most of his time. This was a kind of mental bubble in which he established himself when he could not bear to be a part of what was going on around him. From it he could see out and judge but in it he was safe from any kind of penetration from without. It was the only place where he felt free of the general idiocy of his fellows. His mother had never entered it but from it he could see her with absolute clarity.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Mother, Judging, Mind

  Flannery O'Connor (1965). “Everything That Rises Must Converge: Stories”, p.11, Farrar, Straus and Giroux

  12 Copy quote

• Poorly written novels--no matter how pious and edifying the behavior of the characters--are not good in themselves and are therefore not really edifying.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Character, Matter, Behavior

  Flannery O'Connor (1969). “Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose”, p.174, Macmillan

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• 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

  Truth, Eye, Novelists

  Flannery O'Connor (1969). “Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose”, p.177, Macmillan

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• I find that most people know what a story is until they sit down to write one. Then they find themselves writing a sketch with an essay woven through it, or an essay with a sketch woven through it, or an editorial with a character in it, or a case history with a moral, or some other mongrel thing.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Writing, Character, People

  Flannery O'Connor (1969). “Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose”, p.66, Macmillan

  9 Copy quote

• The beginning of human knowledge is through the senses, and the fiction writer begins where the human perception begins. He appeals through the senses, and you cannot appeal through the senses with abstractions.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Perception, Fiction, Crafts

  Flannery O'Connor (1969). “Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose”, p.67, Macmillan

  8 Copy quote

• There is no excuse for anyone to write fiction for public consumption unless he has been called to do so by the presence of a gift. It is the nature of fiction not to be good for much unless it is good in itself.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Writing, Fiction, No Excuses

  Flannery O'Connor (1969). “Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose”, p.81, Macmillan

  8 Copy quote

• Her name was Maude and she drank whisky all day from a fruit jar under the counter.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Names, Jars, Fruit

  Flannery O'Connor (2007). “Wise Blood: A Novel”, p.86, Macmillan

  8 Copy quote

• The black sky was underpinned with long silver streaks that looked like scaffolding and depth on depth behind it were thousands of stars that all seemed to be moving very slowly as if they were about some vast construction work that involved the whole universe and would take all time to complete. No one was paying attention to the sky.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Stars, Moving, Sky

  Flannery O'Connor (1965). “Everything That Rises Must Converge: Stories”, p.26, Macmillan

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• Our age not only does not have a very sharp eye for the almost imperceptible intrusions of grace, it no longer has much feeling for the nature of the violences which precede and follow them.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Eye, Grace, Feelings

  Flannery O'Connor (1993). “"A Good Man is Hard to Find"”, p.58, Rutgers University Press

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• 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

  Writing, Thinking, Air

  4 Copy quote

• Art transcends its limitations only by staying within them.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Art, Staying, Limitation

  Flannery O'Connor (1969). “Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose”, p.171, Macmillan

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  Writing, Thinking, Quality

  Flannery O'Connor (1988). “The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor”, p.10, Macmillan

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Examination, Fiction, Freak

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• The Southerner is usually tolerant of those weaknesses that proceed from innocence.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Weakness, Innocence, Southerner

  Flannery O'Connor (1969). “Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose”, p.110, Macmillan

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• [Simone Weil's] life is almost a perfect blend of the Comic and the Terrible, which two things may be opposite sides of the same coin. In my own experience, everything funny I have written is more terrible than it is funny, or only funny because it is terrible, or only terrible because it is funny.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Opposites, Two, Perfect

  Flannery O'Connor (1988). “Collected Works”, New York, NY : Library of America : Distributed to the trade in the U.S. and Canada by Viking Press

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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.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Issues, Faithful, Trying

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• It is popular to believe that in order to see clearly one must believe nothing. This may work well enough if you are observing cells under a microscope. It will not work if you are writing fiction. For the fiction writer, to believe nothing is to see nothing.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Believe, Writing, Cells

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• I have enough energy to write with and as that is all I have any business doing anyhow, I can with one eye squinted take it all as a blessing.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Eye, Writing, Blessing

  Flannery O'Connor (1988). “The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor”, p.16, Macmillan

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• I am much younger now than I was at twelve or anyway, less burdened.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Self Confidence, Twelve

  Flannery O'Connor (1988). “Collected Works”, New York, NY : Library of America : Distributed to the trade in the U.S. and Canada by Viking Press

  9 Copy quote

• Jesus was the only One that ever raised the dead," The Misfit continued, "and He shouldn't have done it. He shown everything off balance. If He did what He said, then it's nothing for you to do but throw away everything and follow Him, and if He didn't, then it's nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness," he said and his voice had become almost a snarl.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Jesus, Voice, House

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• 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

  Writing, Here And There, Attention

  Flannery O'Connor (1988). “The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor”, p.301, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Character, Eye, Writing

  Flannery O'Connor (1969). “Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose”, p.89, Macmillan

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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.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Book, Two, Fifty

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• There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Funny, Witty, Teacher

  Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose "The Nature and Aims of Fiction" (1969)

  8 Copy quote

• It's easier to bleed than sweat, Mr. Motes.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Sweat, Hardship, Easier

  Flannery O'Connor (2007). “Wise Blood: A Novel”, p.229, Macmillan

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