I am very much afraid that to the fiction writer the fact that we shall always have the poor with us is a source of satisfaction,for it means, essentially, that he will always be able to find someone like himself.
Flannery O'ConnorSuccess 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.
Flannery O'ConnorKnowing who you are is good for one generation only. You haven't the foggiest idea where you stand now or who you are
Flannery O'ConnorI don't think literature would be possible in a determined world. We might go through the motions but the heart would be out of it. Nobody could then 'smile darkly and ignore the howls.' Even if there were no Church to teach me this, writing two novels would do it. I think the more you write, the less inclined you will be to rely on theories like determinism. Mystery isn't something that is gradually evaporating. It grows along with knowledge.
Flannery O'ConnorThe less self-conscious you are about what you are about, the better in a way, that is to say technically. You have to get it in your blood, not in the head.
Flannery O'ConnorWhen you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs you do, you can relax and use more normal means of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock -- to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures.
Flannery O'Connor