Stephanie Loomis

“I must write down that I am to be an artist. Not in the sense of aesthetic frippery but in the sense of aesthetic craftsmanship; otherwise I will feel my loneliness continually—like this today. The word craftsmanship takes care of the work angle & the word aesthetic the truth angle.”
― Flannery O'Connor, A Prayer Journal

“But I am a storyteller, and that involves language, for me the English language, that wonderfully rich, complex, and ofttimes confusing tongue. When language is limited, I am thereby diminished, too.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

“In the act of creativity, the artist lets go the self-control which he normally clings to and is open to riding the wind.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

“The fiction writer is an observer, first, last, and always, but he cannot be an adequate observer unless he is free from uncertainty about what he sees. Those who have no absolute values cannot let the relative remain merely relative; they are always raising it to the level of the absolute. The Catholic fiction writer is entirely free to observe. He feels no call to take on the duties of God or to create a new universe. He feels perfectly free to look at the one we already have and to show exactly what he sees.”
― Flannery O'Connor, Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose