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Quote by Flannery O'Connor

“A story has to have muscle as well as meaning, and the meaning has to be in the muscle.”

Quote by Flannery O'Connor

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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“You ought to be able to discover something from your stories. If you don't, probably nobody else will.”

Ifs Stories Able Ought

Book:Mystery and Manners

Source: Mystery and Manners

“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.”

Writing Self Forget Example Abandonment Good Examples

Author:Flannery O'Connor

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

Worst Hardest Vanity

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

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

“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