Flannery O’Connor: Trending quotes

“Art transcends its limitations only by staying within them.”

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

“I love a lot of people, understand none of them…”

“Not-writing is a good deal worse than writing.”

“Doctors always think anybody doing something they aren't is a quack; also they think all patients are idiots.”

“The mind serves best when it's anchored in the Word of God. There is no danger then of becoming an intellectual without integrity…”

“I come from a family where the only emotion respectable to show is irritation. In some this tendency produces hives, in others literature, in me both.”

“A working knowledge of the devil can be very well had from resisting him.”

“Your criticism sounds to me as if you have read too many critical books and are too smart in an artificial, destructive, and very limited way.”

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

“I write to discover what I know.”

“She could never be a saint, but she thought she could be a martyr if they killed her quick.”

“Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.”

“I don't deserve any credit for turning the other cheek as my tongue is always in it.”

“The writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that does not require his attention.”

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

“She looked at nice young men as if she could smell their stupidity.”

“Anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days.”

“Art never responds to the wish to make it democratic; it is not for everybody; it is only for those who are willing to undergo the effort needed to understand it.”