...free will does not mean one will, but many wills conflicting in one man. Freedom cannot be conceived simply. Flannery O'Connor More Quotes by Flannery O'Connor More Quotes From Flannery O'Connor I use the grotesque the way I do because people are deaf and dumb and need help to see and hear. Flannery O'Connor dumbpeopleneeds There is something in us, as storytellers and as listeners to stories, that demands the redemptive act, that demands that what falls at least be offered the chance to be restored. Flannery O'Connor storieswritingfall Total non-retention has kept my education from being a burden to me. Flannery O'Connor retentionburden Those who have no absolute values cannot let the relative remain merely relative; they are always raising it to the level of the absolute. Flannery O'Connor relativeabsoluteslevels To the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind you draw large and startling figures. Flannery O'Connor hearingfiguresblind I don't deserve any credit for turning the other cheek as my tongue is always in it. Flannery O'Connor tonguecredithumorous People without hope not only don’t write novels, but what is more to the point, they don’t read them. They don’t take long looks at anything, because they lack the courage. The way to despair is to refuse to have any kind of experience, and the novel, of course, is a way to have experience. Flannery O'Connor writinglongpeople I suppose half of writing is overcoming the revulsion you feel when you sit down to it. Flannery O'Connor halfovercomingwriting Conviction without experience makes for harshness. Flannery O'Connor harshnessconvictionexperience Faith comes and goes. It rises and falls like the tides of an invisible ocean. If it is presumptuous to think that faith will stay with you forever, it is just as presumptuous to think that unbelief will. Flannery O'Connor oceanfallthinking Once the process [of conversion] is begun and continues...you are continually turning inward toward God and away from your own egocentricity...you have to see this selfish side of yourself in order to turn away from it. I measure God by everything I am not. I begin with that. Flannery O'Connor selfishfaithorder I think there is no suffering greater than what is caused by the doubts of those who want to believe. Flannery O'Connor doubtbelievethinking In yourself right now is all the place you've got. Flannery O'Connor independenceright-nowself-esteem I have found, in short, from reading my own writing, that my subject in fiction is the action of grace in territory largely held by the devil. Flannery O'Connor readinggracewriting Sickness is a place, ... and it's always a place where there's no company, where nobody can follow. Flannery O'Connor companysickness It's always wrong of course to say that you can't do this or you can't do that in fiction. You can do anything you can get away with, but nobody has ever gotten away with much. Flannery O'Connor get-awaywritingfiction Faith is what someone knows to be true, whether they believe it or not. Flannery O'Connor literaturefaithbelieve Ours is the first age in history which has asked the child what he would tolerate learning. Flannery O'Connor agechildrenfirsts Many of my ardent admirers would be roundly shocked and disturbed if they realized that everything I believe is thoroughly moral, thoroughly Catholic, and that it is these beliefs that give my work its chief characteristics. Flannery O'Connor catholicgivingbelieve When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs you do, you can relax and use more normal means of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock -- to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures. Flannery O'Connor visiontalkingmean
