522 Quotes by Flannery O'Connor

He was bald-headed except for a little fringe of rust-colored hair and his face was nearly the same color as the unpaved roads and washed like them with ruts and gullys.

Mrs. Pritchard could not stand an anticlimax. She required the taste of blood from time to time to keep her equilibrium.

I have a one-legged friend and I asked her what they said to John at the gate. She said she reckoned they said, “The lame shall enter first.” This may be because the lame will be able to knock everybody else aside with their crutches.

Who’s there?” the voice from inside said and there was a quality about it now that seemed final. The knob rattled and the voice said peremptorily, “Who’s there, I ast you?” Parker bent down and put his mouth near the stuffed keyhole. “Obadiah,” he whispered and all at once he felt the light pouring through him, turning his spider web soul into a perfect arabesque of colors, a garden of trees and birds and beasts.

The scientist has the habit of science; the artist, the habit of art.

My own approach to literary problems is very like the one Dr. Johnson’s blind housekeeper used when she poured tea-she put her finger inside the cup.

I suppose that is what we have to have to get grace. Give me the courage to stand the pain to get the grace, Oh Lord. Help me with this life that seems so treacherous, so disappointing.

Give me the courage to stand the pain to get the grace.

As was usual with him, he began with the least important thing and worked around and in toward the center where the meaning was.