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" 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. "

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" 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. "

Flannery O'Connor

Rich

Poor

" To expect too much is to have a sentimental view of life and this is a softness that ends in bitterness. "

" I am a writer because writing is the thing I do best. "

" Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay. "

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

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

" The basis of art is truth, both in matter and in mode. "

" Everywhere I go, I'm asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. "

Flannery O'Connor

Opinion

Enough

" I don't deserve any credit for turning the other cheek as my tongue is always in it. "

" When in Rome, do as you done in Milledgeville. "

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

" The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it. "

" Conviction without experience makes for harshness. "

" I preach there are all kinds of truth, your truth and somebody else's. But behind all of them there is only one truth and that is that there's no truth. "

" Faith is what someone knows to be true, whether they believe it or not. "

" The writer can choose what he writes about but he cannot choose what he is able to make live. "

Flannery O'Connor

Cannot

Live

" At its best our age is an age of searchers and discoverers, and at its worst, an age that has domesticated despair and learned to live with it happily. "

" The writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that does not require his attention. "

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

" 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. "

" I do not know You, God, because I am in the way. Please help me to push myself aside. "

Flannery O'Connor

God

Myself

" 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. "

" The writer operates at a peculiar crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet. His problem is to find that location. "

" I don't have my novel outlined, and I have to write to discover what I am doing. Like the old lady, I don't know so well what I think until I see what I say; then I have to say it over again. "