Flannery O'Connor quotes
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.
Conviction without experience makes for harshness.
Everywhere I go, I'm asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.
I am a writer because writing is the thing I do best.
I am not afraid that the book will be controversial, I'm afraid it will not be controversial.
I don't deserve any credit for turning the other cheek as my tongue is always in it.
I find that most people know what a story is until they sit down to write one.
It is better to be young in your failures than old in your successes.
It seems that the fiction writer has a revolting attachment to the poor, for even when he writes about the rich, he is more concerned with what they lack than with what they have.
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.
The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.
The writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that does not require his attention.
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.