I find that most people know what a story is until they sit down to write one. Then they find themselves writing a sketch with an essay woven through it, or an essay with a sketch woven through it, or an editorial with a character in it, or a case history with a moral, or some other mongrel thing.
Flannery O'ConnorIt seems that the fiction writer has a revolting attachment to the poor, for even when he writes about the rich, he is more concerned with what they lack than with what they have.
Flannery O'ConnorThose who have no absolute values cannot let the relative remain merely relative; they are always raising it to the level of the absolute.
Flannery O'Connor