Top Flannery O'Connor Quotes

Flannery O'Connor Biography

Mary Flannery O'Connor (March 25, 1925 – August 3, 1964) was an American writer and essayist. She wrote two novels and thirty-two short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries.

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Flannery O'Connor Quotes

The only way, I think, to learn to write short stories is to write them, and then try to discover what you have done.

Done, Think, Thinking, Trying, Write, Writing

So many people can now write competent stories that the short story is in danger of dying of competence.

Competent, Dying, People, Short, Write, Writing

There may never be anything new to say, but there is always a new way to say it, and since, in art, the way of saying a thing becomes a part of what is said, every work of art is unique and requires fresh attention.

Art, Philosophical, Said, Say, Unique, Way

The reviewer always has hold of the wrong horror.

Editors, Horror, Critics, Hold, Wrong

I don't think literature would be possible in a determined world. We might go through the motions but the heart would be out of it. Nobody could then 'smile darkly and ignore the howls. ' Even if there were no Church to teach me this, writing two novels would do it. I think the more you write, the less inclined you will be to rely on theories like determinism. Mystery isn't something that is gradually evaporating. It grows along with knowledge.

Heart, Literature, Nobody, Thinking, World, Writing

I do not like the raw sound of the human voice in unison unless it is under the discipline of music.

Discipline, Human, Like, Sound, Unison, Voice

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.

Attention, Clobber, Knows, Reader

. . . free will does not mean one will, but many wills conflicting in one man. Freedom cannot be conceived simply.

Conceived, Doe, Freedom, Mean, Men, Simply

She had observed that the more education they got, the less they could do. Their father had gone to a one-room schoolhouse through the eighth grade and he could do anything.

Education, Father, Gone, Rooms, Schoolhouse

Art transcends its limitations only by staying within them.

Art, Limitation, Limitations, Staying, Transcends

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.

Apt, Certain, Life, Lost, Spiritual

Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to never was there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it

Away, Gone, Unless, Where You Are, Where You Come

The dead don't bother with particulars.

Bother, Dead, Death, Particulars

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.

Age, Children, Done, Lying, Veteran, War

I think it is safe to say that while the South is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted.

Christ, Safe, Say, Think, Thinking

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

Anyway, Burdened, Self Confidence, Twelve, Younger

I can, with one eye squinted, take it all as a blessing.

Blessing, Eye, I Can, Take

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.

Condition, Kind, Literature, Losing, Novelists

Most of us have learned to be dispassionate about evil, to look it in the face and find, as often as not, our own grinning reflections with which we do not argue, but good is another matter. Few have stared at that long enough to accept that its face too is grotesque, that in us the good is something under construction. The modes of evil usually receive worthy expression. The modes of good have to be satisfied with a cliche or a smoothing down that will soften their real look.

Cliche, Evil, Expression, Face, Real, Reflection

The meaning of the story is the story.

Stories, Story, Meaning

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Flannery O'Connor Biography

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