My own approach to literary problems is very like the one Dr. Johnson's blind housekeeper used when she poured tea-she put her finger inside the cup. Flannery O'Connor More Quotes by Flannery O'Connor More Quotes From Flannery O'Connor Most of us have learned to be dispassionate about evil, to look it in the face and find, as often as not, our own grinning reflections with which we do not argue, but good is another matter. Few have stared at that long enough to accept that its face too is grotesque, that in us the good is something under construction. The modes of evil usually receive worthy expression. The modes of good have to be satisfied with a cliche or a smoothing down that will soften their real look. Flannery O'Connor real expression reflection I am a Catholic not like someone else would be a Baptist or a Methodist, but like someone else would be an atheist. Flannery O'Connor catholic atheist would-be In a sense sickness is a place, more instructive than a long trip to Europe, and it's always a place where there's no company, where nobody can follow. Sickness before death is a very appropriate thing and I think those who don't have it miss one of God's mercies. Flannery O'Connor europe long thinking You can't clobber any reader while he's looking. You divert his attention, then you clobber him and he never knows what hit him. Flannery O'Connor reader knows attention Go warn the children of God of the terrible speed of mercy. Flannery O'Connor speed mercy children 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. I have also found that what I write is read by an audience which puts little stock either in grace or the devil. You discover your audience at the same time and in the same way that you discover your subject, but it is an added blow. Flannery O'Connor reading blow writing We are not judged by what we are basically. We are judged by how hard we use what we have been given. Success means nothing to the Lord. Flannery O'Connor use lord mean Most of us come to the church by a means the church does not allow. Flannery O'Connor church doe mean For me it is the virgin birth, the Incarnation, the resurrection which are the true laws of the flesh and the physical. Death, decay, destruction are the suspension of these laws. I am always astonished at the emphasis the Church puts on the body. It is not the soul she says that will rise but the body, glorified. Flannery O'Connor church soul law I am tired of reading reviews that call A Good Man brutal and sarcastic. The stories are hard but they are hard because there is nothing harder or less sentimental than Christian realism.... when I see these stories described as horror stories I am always amused because the reviewer always has hold of the wrong horror. Flannery O'Connor sarcastic reading christian I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say. Flannery O'Connor writing inspiring thinking On the subject of the feminist business, I just never think...of qualities which are specifically feminine or masculine. I suppose I divide people into two classes: the Irksome and the Non-Irksome without regard to sex. Yes and there are the Medium Irksome and the Rare Irksome. Flannery O'Connor class sex thinking The Catholic novelist in the South will see many distorted images of Christ, but he will certainly feel that a distorted image of Christ is better than no image at all. I think he will feel a good deal more kinship with backwoods prophets and shouting fundamentalists than he will with those politer elements for whom the supernatural is an embarrassment and for whom religion has become a department of sociology or culture or personality development. Flannery O'Connor catholic personality thinking I am no disbeliever in spiritual purpose and no vague believer. I see from the standpoint of Christian orthodoxy. This means that for me the meaning of life is centered in our Redemption by Christ and what I see in the world I see in relation to that. Flannery O'Connor spiritual christian mean We lost our innocence in the Fall, and our turn to it is through the Redemption which was brought about by Christ's death and by our slow participation in it. Sentimentality is a skipping of this process in its concrete reality and an early arrival at a mock state of innocence, which strongly suggests its opposite. Flannery O'Connor opposites reality fall When the peacock has presented his back, the spectator will usually begin to walk around him to get a front view; but the peacock will continue to turn so that no front view is possible. The thing to do then is to stand still and wait until it pleases him to turn. When it suits him, the peacock will face you. Then you will see in a green-bronze arch around him a galaxy of gazing, haloed suns. Flannery O'Connor gazing views waiting St. Cyril of Jerusalem, in instructing catechumens, wrote: “The dragon sits by the side of the road, watching those who pass. Beware lest he devour you. We go to the Father of Souls, but it is necessary to pass by the dragon.” No matter what form the dragon may take, it is of this mysterious passage past him, or into his jaws, that stories of any depth will always be concerned to tell, and this being the case, it requires considerable courage at any time, in any country, not to turn away from the storyteller. Flannery O'Connor country father past You have to quit confusing a madness with a mission. Flannery O'Connor quitting confusing madness She could never be a saint, but she thought she could be a martyr if they killed her quick. Flannery O'Connor martyr saint ifs When in Rome, do as you done in Milledgeville. Flannery O'Connor rome done literature
