Quotes by Flannery O'Connor

About Flannery O'Connor:

Mary Flannery O'Connor was an American writer and essayist. An important voice in American literature, she wrote two novels and 32 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries. She was a Southern writer who often wrote in a Southern Gothic style and relied heavily on regional settings and grotesque characters. Her writing also reflected her own Roman Catholic faith, and frequently examined questions of morality and ethics.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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

Flannery O'Connor

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 p...

Flannery O'Connor

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

Flannery O'Connor

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

Flannery O'Connor

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

Flannery O'Connor

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.

Flannery O'Connor

I am not afraid that the book will be controversial, I'm afraid it will not be controversial.

Flannery O'Connor

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

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

Flannery O'Connor

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

Flannery O'Connor

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

Flannery O'Connor

When in Rome, do as you done in Milledgeville.

Flannery O'Connor

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

Flannery O'Connor

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

Flannery O'Connor

Art transcends its limitations only by staying within them.

Flannery O'Connor

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

Flannery O'Connor

If you live today, you breath in nihilism ... it's the gas you breathe. If I hadn't had the Church to fight it with or to tell me the necessity of fighting it, I would be the stinkingest logical positivist you ever saw right now.

Flannery O'Connor

My intellect is so limited, Lord, that I can only trust in You to preserve me as I should be.

Flannery O'Connor

The operation of the Church is entirely set up for the sinner; which creates much misunderstanding among the smug.” (August 9, 1955)

Flannery O'Connor

Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles 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.

Flannery O'Connor

When we get our spiritual house in order, we'll be dead. This goes on. You arrive at enough certainty to be able to make your way, but it is making it in darkness. Don't expect faith to clear things up for you. It is trust, not certainty.

Flannery O'Connor

Author Bio

  • NameFlannery O'Connor
  • DescriptionAmerican novelist, short story writer
  • BornMarch 25, 1925
  • DiedAugust 3, 1964
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionWriter; Novelist; Essayist
  • WorksWise Blood; The Violent Bear It Away; A Good Man Is Hard To Find
  • AwardsNational Book Award