Flannery O’Connor Quotes

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

I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.

The truth does not change, yet we often try to mold it to fit our desires.

Belief in the grotesque is a sign of spiritual health.

You have to write the way you see it, without looking at it too much.

A story is a way to say something that can’t be said any other way.

Writing is a great act of humility.

Everywhere I go, I’m asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them.

If you live today as if it were your last, you will find yourself in church.

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

The best American fiction has always been regional.

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

I can, with one eye squinted, take it all as a blessing.

Grace changes us and change is painful.

The basis of art is truth, both in matter and in mode.

The beginning of human knowledge is through the senses, and the fiction writer begins where human perception begins.

I’m a Catholic writer, and the Catholic church is founded on the idea that there is such a thing as truth.

The novelist with Christian concerns will find in modern life distortions which are repugnant to him, and his problem will be to make them appear as distortions to an audience which is used to seeing them as natural.

Flannery O’Connor Quotes part 2

If you live today as if it were your last, you will find yourself in church.

Christ was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves.

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.

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

The most essential and fundamental aspect of art coincides with the deepest essence of human nature.

I preach there are all kinds of truth, your truth and somebody else’s. But behind all of them there is only one truth and that is that there’s no truth.

Conviction without experience makes for harshness.

Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay.

The writer operates at a peculiar crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet. His problem is to find that location.

A story always sounds clear enough at a distance, but the nearer you get to the scene of events the vaguer it becomes.

God’s truth shines the brightest when it is focused through the lens of human experience.

The basis of art is truth, both in matter and in mode.

I can, with one eye squinted, take it all as a blessing.

The beginning of human knowledge is through the senses, and the fiction writer begins where human perception begins.

I’m a Catholic writer, and the Catholic church is founded on the idea that there is such a thing as truth.

Conviction without experience makes for harshness.

I write to discover what I know.

A story always sounds clear enough at a distance, but the nearer you get to the scene of events the vaguer it becomes.

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

The most essential and fundamental aspect of art coincides with the deepest essence of human nature.

I can, with one eye squinted, take it all as a blessing.

The basis of art is truth, both in matter and in mode.

Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay.

The novelist with Christian concerns will find in modern life distortions which are repugnant to him, and his problem will be to make them appear as distortions to an audience which is used to seeing them as natural.

The writer operates at a peculiar crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet. His problem is to find that location.

Grace changes us and change is painful.

Christ was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves.

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

The beginning of human knowledge is through the senses, and the fiction writer begins where human perception begins.

I’m a Catholic writer, and the Catholic church is founded on the idea that there is such a thing as truth.

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

If you live today as if it were your last, you will find yourself in church.