Later he saw Jesus move from tree to tree in the back of his mind, a wild ragged figure motioning him to turn around and come off into the dark where he might be walking on the water and not know it and then suddenly know it and drown. Flannery O'Connor More Quotes by Flannery O'Connor More Quotes From Flannery O'Connor It was not right to believe anything you couldn't see or hold in your hands or test with your teeth. Flannery O'Connor teeth believe hands Writing is like giving birth to a piano sideways. Anyone who perseveres is either talented or nuts. Flannery O'Connor piano nuts writing I feel that discussing story-writing in terms of plot, character, and theme is like trying to describe the expression on a face by saying where the eyes, nose, and mouth are. Flannery O'Connor eye writing character The dead don't bother with particulars. Flannery O'Connor bother death I am a writer because writing is the thing I do best. Flannery O'Connor success writing life Either practice restraint or be prepared for crowding Flannery O'Connor be-prepared restraint practice But learned people can analyze for me why I fear hell and their implication is that there is no hell. But I believe in hell. Hell seems a great deal more feasible to my weak mind than heaven. No doubt because hell is a more earth-seeming thing. I can fancy the tortures of the damned but I cannot imagine the disembodied souls hanging in a crystal for all eternity praising God. Flannery O'Connor heaven believe people I will rejoice the day when they say: This is right whether we all rot on top of each other or not, dear children, as we certainly may. Either practice restraint or be prepared for crowding. Flannery O'Connor abortion practice children If there is no possibility for change in a character, we have no interest in him. Flannery O'Connor possibility writing character I doubt if the texture of Southern life is any more grotesque than that of the rest of the nation, but it does seem evident that the Southern writer is particularly adept at recognizing the grotesque; and to recognize the grotesque, you have to have some notion of what is not grotesque and why. Flannery O'Connor southern doubt life Knowing who you are is good for one generation only. You haven't the foggiest idea where you stand now or who you are Flannery O'Connor knowing-who-you-are generations ideas The type of mind that can understand good fiction is not necessarily the educated mind, but it is at all times the kind of mind that is willing to have its sense of mystery deepened by contact with reality, and its sense of reality deepened by contact with mystery. Flannery O'Connor mind reality fiction Nothing needs to happen to a writer’s life after they are 20. By then they’ve experienced more than enough to last their creative life. Flannery O'Connor lasts creative needs I'm going to preach there was no Fall because there was nothing to fall from, and no Redemption because there was no Fall, and no Judgment because there wasn't the first two. Nothing matters but that Jesus was a liar. Flannery O'Connor liars fall jesus Good and evil appear to be joined in every culture at the spine. Flannery O'Connor good-and-evil evil culture I never understand how writers can succumb to vanity - what you work the hardest on is usually the worst. Flannery O'Connor vanity hardest worst Writing is a good example of self-abandonment. I never completely forget myself except when I am writing and I am never more completely myself than when I am writing. Flannery O'Connor example self writing You ought to be able to discover something from your stories. If you don't, probably nobody else will. Flannery O'Connor ought able stories 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. The reader of today looks for this motion, and rightly so, but what he has forgotten is the cost of it. His sense of evil is diluted or lacking altogether, and so he has forgotten the price of restoration. When he reads a novel, he wants either his sense tormented or his spirits raised. He wants to be transported, instantly, either to mock damnation or a mock innocence. Flannery O'Connor damnation evil fall The artist uses his reason to discover an answering reason in everything he sees. Flannery O'Connor artist use reason
