522 Quotes by Flannery O'Connor

Mrs. Hopewell had no bad qualities of her own but she was able to use other people's in such a constructive way that she never felt the lack.

Now the second common characteristic of fiction follows from this, and it is that fiction is presented in such a way that the reader has the sense that it is unfolding around him. This doesn't mean he has to identify himself with the character or feel compassion for the character or anything like that. It just means that fiction has to be largely presented rather than reported. Another way to say it is that though fiction is a narrative art, it relies heavily on the element of drama.

If you don't hunt it down and kill it, it will hunt you down and kill you.

With grown people, a road led either to heaven or hell, but with children there were always stops along the way where their attention could be turned with a trifle.

Dogma is the guardian of mystery. The doctrines are spiritually significant in ways that we cannot fathom.

The operation of the Church is entirely set up for the sinner; which creates much misunderstanding among the smug.”(August 9, 1955)

When there is a tendency to compartmentalize the spiritual and make it resident in a certain type of life only, the spiritual is apt gradually to be lost.

Remember what you won't get if you don't mind," her grandfather remarked.

It does not take much to make us realize what fools we are, but the little it takes is long in coming.