522 Quotes by Flannery O'Connor

Hell seems a great deal more feasible to my weak mind than heaven.

I do not know You God because I am in the way. Please help me to push myself aside.

A good man is hard to find,” Red Sammy said. “Everything is getting terrible. I remember the day you could go off and leave your screen door unlatched. Not no more.

This shiffer-robe belongs to Hazel Motes. Do not steal it or you will be hunted down and killed.

The dead don’t bother with particulars.

There a series of Catholic rituals and teachings had offered her young life a coherent universe. By 1946, Savannah had for O’Connor ceded to the university world of Iowa, where new influences, including intellectual joys, brought with them questions and skepticism.

Does one’s integrity ever lie in what he is not able to do? I think that usually it does, for free will does not mean one will, but many wills conflicting in one man. Freedom cannot be conceived simply. It is a mystery and one which a novel, even a comic novel, can only be asked to deepen.

Any criticism at all which depresses you to the extent that you feel you cannot ever write anything worth anything is from the Devil and to subject yourself to it is for you an occasion of sin. In you the talent is there and you are expected to use it. Whether the work itself is completely successful, or whether you ever get any worldly success out of it, is a matter of no concern to you. It is like the Japanese swordsmen who are indifferent to getting slain in the duel.

I believe firmly in mystery and manners.