Flannery O Connor Quotes

“The mind serves best when it's anchored in the Word of God. There is no danger then of becoming an intellectual without integrity...”
― Flannery O'Connor, The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

“I have what passes for an education in this day and time, but I am not deceived by it.”
― Flannery O'Connor, The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

“One of the awful things about writing when you are a Christian is that for you the ultimate reality is the Incarnation, the present reality is the Incarnation, and nobody believes in the Incarnation; that is, nobody in your audience. My audience are the people who think God is dead. At least these are the people I am conscious of writing for.”
― Flannery O'Connor, The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

“Wise Blood has reached the age of ten and is still alive. My critical powers are just sufficient to determine this, and I am gratified to be able to say it. The book was written with zest and, if possible, it should be read that way. It is a comic novel about a Christian malgré lui, and as such, very serious, for all comic novels that are any good must be about matters of life and death. Wise Blood was written by an author congenitally innocent of theory, but one with certain preoccupations. That belief in Christ is to some a matter of life and death has been a stumbling block for some readers who would prefer to think it a matter of no great consequence. For them, Hazel Motes's integrity lies in his trying with such vigor to get rid of the ragged figure who moves from tree to tree in the back of his mind. For the author, Hazel's integrity lies in his not being able to do so. Does one's integrity ever lie in what he is not able to do? I think that usually it does, for free will does not mean one will, but many wills conflicting in one man. Freedom cannot be conceived simply. It is a mystery and one which a novel, even a comic novel, can only be asked to deepen.

(Preface to second edition, 1962)”
― Flannery O'Connor, 3 by Flannery O'Connor: The Violent Bear It Away / Everything That Rises Must Converge / Wise Blood

“Don’t let me ever think, dear God, that I was anything but the instrument for Your story-just like the typewriter was mine.”
― Flannery O'Connor, The Complete Stories

“The Catholic writer, in so far as he has the mind of the Church, will feel life from the standpoint of the central Christian mystery: that it has for all its horror, been found by God to be worth dying for.”
― Flannery O'Connor

“Flannery O'Connor had a certain genius. I don't think John Updike has, or Norman Mailer or William Styron, all of whom are talented, but they don't exceed themselves in any way. Norman Mailer thinks William Burroughs is a genius, which I think is ludicrous beyond words. I don't think William Burroughs has an ounce of talent.”
― Truman Capote, Conversations with Capote

“She had been so fiercely alive. She had spoken honestly, and lived with an honesty that few could claim to match. She had made the most of every minute she was given. She bargained and rationed and managed the seconds. She burned up the days.”
― Ann Napolitano, A Good Hard Look

“I flipped to the author’s photo in the Library of America edition of O’Connor’s collected works, and forked it over. Solitary examined the photo.
“Okay,” she said, handing it back, “I’ll read it.”
What in Flannery O’Connor’s countenance met with Solitary’s approval?
“I dunno,” she said. “She looks kind of busted up, y’know? She ain’t too pretty. I trust her.”
― Avi Steinberg, Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian

“Truth-telling is difficult because the varieties of untruth are so many and so well disguised. Lies are hard to identify when they come in the form of apparently innocuous imprecision, socially acceptable slippage, hyperbole masquerading as enthusiasm, or well-placed propaganda. These forms of falsehood are so common, and even so normal, in media-saturated, corporately controlled culture that truth often looks pale, understated, alarmist, rude, or indecisive by comparison. Flannery O’Connor’s much-quoted line ‘You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd’ has a certain prophetic force in the face of more and more commonly accepted facsimiles of truth - from PR to advertising claims to propaganda masquerading as news.”
― Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies

“Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to was never there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it. Where is there a place for you to be? No place... Nothing outside you can give you any place... In yourself right now is all the place you've got.”
― Flannery O Connor

“I don’t know how to cure the source-itis except to tell you that I can discover a good many possible sources myself for Wise Blood but I am often embarrassed to find that I read the sources after I had written the book. I have been exposed to Wordsworth’s “Intimation” ode but that is all I can say about it. I have one of those food-chopper brains that nothing comes out of the way it went in. The Oedipus business comes nearer home. Of course Haze Motes is not an Oedipus figure but there are the obvious resemblances. At the time I was writing the last of the book, I was living in Connecticut with the Robert Fitzgeralds. Robert Fitzgerald translated the Theban cycle with Dudley Fitts, and their translation of the Oedipus Rex had just come out and I was much taken with it. Do you know that translation? I am not an authority on such things but I think it must be the best, and it is certainly very beautiful. Anyway, all I can say is, I did a lot of thinking about Oedipus.”
― Flannery O'Connor, The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

“In the name of social order, liberal thought, and sometimes even Christianity, the novelist is asked to be the handmaid of his age.”
― Flannery O'Connor

“I read at Wesleyan last week— “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” After the reading, I went to one of their classes to answer questions. There were several young teachers in there and one began by saying, “Miss O’Connor, why was the Misfit’s hat black?” I said most countrymen in Georgia wore black hats. He looked quite disappointed. Then he said, “Miss O’Connor, the Misfit represents Christ, does he not?” “He does not,” says I. He really looked hurt at that. Finally he said, “Well Miss O’Connor, what IS the significance of the Misfit’s hat?” "To cover his head," I said. He looked crushed then and left me alone." - Flannery O'Connor to Caroline Gordon”
― Christine Flanagan, The Letters of Flannery O'Connor and Caroline Gordon

“But there are times when the sharpest suffering is not to suffer and the worse affliction not to be afflicted.”
― Flannery O'Connor

“True genius can get an idea across even to an inferior mind.”
― Flannery O'Connor, Good Country People

“No. No. It couldn't be any baby. She was not going to have something waiting in her to make her deader, she was not.”
― Flannery O'Connor, A Stroke of Good Fortune

“Ever since Albert was denied promotion to full-professor rank, his articles on Flannery O'Connor (“A Good Man Really Is Hard to Find,” “Everything That Rises Must Indeed Converge,” and “The Totemic South: The Violent Actually Do Bear It Away!”) failing to meet with collegial acclaim, he has become determined to serve others, passing out the notices and memoranda, arranging the punch and cookies at various receptions.”
― Lorrie Moore, Birds of America: Stories

“Per cui: se un personaggio ha un carattere legnoso deve avere una gamba di legno; se poi la personalità cambia, allora deve arrivare un ladro a rubargli quella gamba.”
― Antonio Spadaro, Il volto incompiuto: Saggi e lettere sul mestiere di scrivere

“Profondamente cattolica in un Sud radicalmente protestante, la scrittrice dà a Dio e alla dimensione spirituale una consistenza materiale [...]”
― Antonio Spadaro, Il volto incompiuto: Saggi e lettere sul mestiere di scrivere

“Imbevuto di nozioni psico-sociologiche e di un umanitarismo filantropico, è convinto che il male possa essere vinto con un’educazione laica capace di sviluppare l’intelligenza. Johnson però non fa che sfuggire dai suoi schemi e ciò avviene in pagine splendide che toccano i nervi della condizione umana. Johnson coinvolge in questa sua ribellione anche Norton. Sheppard ne uscirà sconfitto: si accorgerà di aver «rimpinzato il suo vuoto di opere buone come un ingordo» e così di aver solo coltivato la propria immagine ideale che adesso si sgonfia per lasciare solo uno schermo nero.”
― Antonio Spadaro, Il volto incompiuto: Saggi e lettere sul mestiere di scrivere

“I suoi personaggi spesso conducono una vita misurata, nella quale ogni cosa è al suo posto. Essi hanno costruito barriere di difesa che solo la violenza può demolire. La grazia non ha i tratti candidi e amorevoli che le si attribuiscono normalmente, non sempre è gentile. Per agire «in un territorio tenuto in gran parte dal diavolo», a volte, essa deve essere violenta.”
― Antonio Spadaro, Il volto incompiuto: Saggi e lettere sul mestiere di scrivere

“Non si cercano (e non si trovano) risposte al problema del male.”
― Antonio Spadaro, Il volto incompiuto: Saggi e lettere sul mestiere di scrivere