Flannery O'Connor Quotes

I use the grotesque the way I do because people are deaf and dumb and need help to see and hear.

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.

Conviction without experience makes for harshness.

Anyone who survives a southern childhood has enough material to last a lifetime.

I am not afraid that the book will be controversial, I'm afraid it will not be controversial.

Everywhere I go, I am asked if I think university stifles writers. My opinion is that it doesn't stifle enough of them.

When in Rome, do as you done in Milledgeville.

I find that most people know what a story is until they sit down to write one.

When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs you do, you can relax and use more normal means of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock — to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures.

It is better to be young in your failures than old in your successes.

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

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.

I suppose half of writing is overcoming the revulsion you feel when you sit down to it.

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.