Your beliefs will be the light by which you see, but they will not be what you see and they will not be a substitute for seeing.
Flannery O'ConnorI am not afraid that the book will be controversial, I'm afraid it will not be controversial.
Flannery O'ConnorIt began to drizzle rain and he turned on the windshield wipers; they made a great clatter like two idiots clapping in church.
Flannery O'ConnorWhenever Iām asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one.
Flannery O'ConnorWe 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.
Flannery O'Connor