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Flannery O'Connor

Flannery O'Connor Quotes

Writer

Flannery O'Connor was an American writer known for her unique Southern background and profound religious themes. Her works often explore moral and religious issues through satire and humor, with her novels 'Wise Blood' and 'The Violent Bear It Away' being among her most famous.

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Famous Flannery O'Connor Quotes

“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.”

Knows Attention Reader

Author:Flannery O'Connor

“I find that most people know what a story is until they sit down to write one. Then they find themselves writing a sketch with an essay woven through it, or an essay with a sketch woven through it, or an editorial with a character in it, or a case history with a moral, or some other mongrel thing.”

People Knows Writing Character Stories Moral Cases Essays Woven Editorials

Book:Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

Source: Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

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

Knows Believe Faith Literature Being True

Author:Flannery O'Connor

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

People Knows Writing Stories

Book:Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

Source: Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

“I write to discover what I know.”

Author:Flannery O'Connor

“...I have to write to discover what I am doing. Like the old lady, I don't know so well what I think until I see what I say; then I have to say it again.”

Thinking Knows Writing Wells Old Lady

Book:The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

Source: The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

“When you leave a man alone with his Bible and the Holy Ghost inspires him, he's going to be a Catholic one way or another, even though he knows nothing about the visible church. His kind of Christianity may not be socially desirable, but will be real in the sight of God.”

Knows Men Way Kind May Real Church Christianity Inspire Holy Sight Catholic Ghost One Way Visible Being Real Desirable Holy Ghost

Author:Flannery O'Connor

“You know," Daddy said, "it's some that can live their whole life out without asking about it and it's others has to know why it is, and this boy is one of the latters. He's going to be into everything!”

Knows Said Whole Boys Asking Whole Life Daddy

Book:A Good Man is Hard to Find

Source: A Good Man is Hard to Find

“I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say.”

Thinking Knows Writing Inspiring

Author:Flannery O'Connor

“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.”

Knows Mind Might Moving Turns Jesus Water Dark Saws Tree Figures Walking Ragged

Book:Three by Flannery O'Connor: Wise blood, The violent bear it away, Everything that rises must converge

Source: Three by Flannery O'Connor: Wise blood, The violent bear it away, Everything that rises must converge

“[To] know oneself is, above all, to know what one lacks. It is to measure oneself against Truth, and not the other way around. The first product of self-knowledge is humility . . .”

Knows Way Firsts Self Humility Products Oneself Self Knowledge Knowing Oneself

Book:Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

Source: Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

“Purity strikes me as the most mysterious of the virtues and the more I think about it the less I know about it.”

Thinking Knows Happiness Virtue Strikes Mysterious Purity

Book:Collected Works

Source: Collected Works

“I know that the writer does call up the general and maybe the essential through the particular, but this general and essential is still deeply embedded in mystery. It is not answerable to any of our formulas.”

Knows Doe Stills Happiness Mystery Particular Essentials Formulas Embedded

Book:Collected Works

Source: Collected Works

“Every morning between 9 and 12 I go to my room and sit before a piece of paper. Many times, I just sit for three hours with no ideas coming to me. But I know one thing. If an idea does come between 9 and 12 I am there ready for it.”

Ifs Knows Doe Ideas Three Hours Rooms Morning Pieces One Thing Ready Paper Crafts No Idea Every Morning

Author:Flannery O'Connor

“You shall know the truth, and it will make you odd.”

Knows Truth Funny Humorous Odd Weirdness Essayists

Author:Flannery O'Connor

“I know well enough that very few people who are supposedly interested in writing are interested in writing well. They are interested in publishing something, and if possible in making a "killing." They are interested in being a writer not in writing. . . If this is what you are interested in, I am not going to be much use to you.”

People Ifs Knows Writing Wells Enough Use Killing Publishing Writing Well

Book:Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

Source: Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

“Far be it for me to have worked it out in any abstract way. I don't know why the bull and Mrs. May have to die, or why Mr. Fortune and Mary Fortune: I just feel in my bones that that is the way it has to be. If I had the abstraction first I don't suppose I would write the story.”

Ifs Knows Way Feels Writing Firsts May Stories Dies Empathy Fortune Bones Abstract Apathy Mary Abstraction Bulls

Author:Flannery O'Connor

“Children know by instinct that hell is an absence of love, and they can pick out theirs without missing.”

Knows Children Hell Missing Picks Instinct Absence

Book:The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

Source: The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

About the Author

Born: March 25, 1925
Died: August 3, 1964
Known for: Writer
Quotes: 320

Related Topics

Writing Ifs Fiction Stories Thinking Way People Knows Believe Doe May Church Enough Literature Wells Life Mystery Novel Able World

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

Mystery and Manners: Occasional ProseRelated source material

The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'ConnorRelated source material

Collected WorksRelated source material

A Good Man is Hard to FindRelated source material

The Complete StoriesRelated source material

Wise BloodRelated source material

Three by Flannery O'Connor: Wise blood, The violent bear it away, Everything that rises must convergeRelated source material

Everything That Rises Must Converge: StoriesRelated source material

Mystery and MannersRelated source material

Wise Blood: A NovelRelated source material

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