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Quote by Flannery O'Connor

“I never understand how writers can succumb to vanity - what you work the hardest on is usually the worst.”

Quote by Flannery O'Connor

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

Work

The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

This book is a compilation of correspondence from Flannery O'Connor, showcasing her personal experiences, reflections on her writing, and her deep engagement with the Catholic faith. more

Author

Flannery O'Connor

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. more

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“We hear a great deal of lamentation these days about writers having all taken themselves to the colleges and universities where they live decorously instead of going out and getting firsthand information about life. The fact is that anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days. If you can't make something out of a little experience, you probably won't be able to make it out of a lot. The writer's business is to contemplate experience, not to be merged in it.”

Ifs Littles Enough Facts Able Lasts Deals Taken Childhood Information College University These Days Contemplating Going Out Survived Colleges And Universities Lamentation

Book:Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

Source: Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

“the writer is initially set going by literature more than by life.”

Literature Experience

Book:Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

Source: Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

“Sometimes attaining the deepest familiarity with a question is our best substitute for actually having the answer.”

Sometimes Science Answers Mathematics Substitutes Familiarity

Book:The Elegant Universe

Source: The Elegant Universe

“The idea of being a writer attracts a good many shiftless people, those who are merely burdened with poetic feelings or afflicted with sensibility.”

People Ideas Feelings Good Man Poetic Sensibility

Author:Flannery O'Connor

“Elizabeth Hardwick told me once that all her first drafts sounded as if a chicken had written them. So do mine for the most part.”

Ifs Firsts Written Mines Chickens

Author:Flannery O'Connor

“Success means being heard and don't stand there and tell me that you are indifferent to being heard. You may write for the joy of it, but the act of writing is not complete in itself. It has to end in its audience.”

Writing May Mean Ends Joy Audience Heard Indifferent

Author:Flannery O'Connor

“It is always difficult to get across to people who are not professional writers that a talent to write does not mean a talent to write anything at all.”

People Writing Mean Doe Difficult Talent

Book:Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

Source: Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

“I don't think you should write something as long as a novel around anything that is not of the gravest concern to you and everybody else and for me this is always the conflict between an attraction for the Holy and the disbelief in it that we breathe in with the air of the times.”

Thinking Should Writing Long Novel Air Holy Conflict Concern Breathe Attraction Disbelief

Author:Flannery O'Connor

“... Simone Weil is a mystery that should keep us all humble, and I need it more than most. Also she's the example of the religious consciousness without a religion which maybe sooner or later I will be able to write about.”

Needs Should Writing Able Religious Consciousness Mystery Example Humble Sooner Or Later

Book:Collected Works

Source: Collected Works

“The war between authors and publishers has been a conflict of ages. On the one side, the publisher has been looked upon as a species of Wantley dragon, whose daily food was the brain and blood of hapless writers. ... On the other side, the author has been considered, like Shelley, 'an eternal child,' in all that relates to practical matters, and a terrible child at that, - incapable of comprehending details, and unreasoanably dissatisfied with results.”

Children Has Beens War Matter Age Sides Results Brain Blood Terrible Conflict Eternal Species Details Practicals Relate Dragons Incapable Publishers Dissatisfied Comprehending Shelley

Author:Mary Abigail Dodge