We lost our innocence in the Fall, and our turn to it is through the Redemption which was brought about by Christ's death and by our slow participation in it. Sentimentality is a skipping of this process in its concrete reality and an early arrival at a mock state of innocence, which strongly suggests its opposite.
Flannery O'ConnorWe are now living in an age which doubts both fact and value. It is the life of this age that we wish to see and judge.
Flannery O'ConnorI have found, in short, from reading my own writing, that my subject in fiction is the action of grace in territory largely held by the devil.
Flannery O'Connor