Flannery O'Connor

"The Christian mind is not the private mind and it is not the mind of the moment."

"One of the effects of false art is the hardening of the heart."

"There is no such thing as a decent heresy."

"The real writer has given up all claim to respectability."

"If you want to know why we can't have nice things, look at what we do with them."

"The peculiar problem of the South is that it, like Israel of old, chose to call itself the chosen people."

"People don't realize the depths that are in them."

"Bad writing is the reason that good readers read no fiction."

"A story is a way to say something that can't be said any other way."

"The writer must be able to distinguish between ideas that are genuinely his and those that he takes from others."

"Flannery O'Connor is not my only name, but it is the one I write under."

"You don't know what you believe until you write it down."

"The novelist is reporting on the human condition."

"Evil is not a mistake; it is a choice."

"The grotesque is the way a writer comes to grips with the moral realities of his culture."

"I am not only a writer but a believer first."

"One of the difficulties of the modern world is that spiritual reality has lost its tangibility."

"The writer must be willing to fail."

"What is accepted by the modern mind is not always what is true."

"The use of the grotesque in fiction is often a sign that the writer is trying to get at something true."

"You write to communicate something to an audience that you hope will understand."

"The mystery of existence is not solved by analysis."

"I regard myself as a very religious writer and a very political writer."

"The writer has to make the reader believe in the impossible."

"If you're going to write about grace, you must understand how terrible grace really is."

"The human being is a mysterious creature with depths we cannot fathom."

"A story works because it respects the truth of human nature."

"The burden of the writer is to tell the truth as he sees it, whatever the cost."

"The South has produced great violence, great passion, and great suffering."

"You write about what you know, and you live what you don't."