To expect too much is to have a sentimental view of life and this is a softness that ends in bitterness.
- Flannery O'Connor
View, Expect, Too, Bitterness
Manners are of such great consequence to the novelist that any kind will do. Bad manners are better than no manners at all, and because we are losing our customary manners, we are probably overly conscious of them; this seems to be a condition that produces writers.
- Flannery O'Connor
Losing, Bad, Our, Overly
Everywhere I go, I'm asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them.
- Flannery O'Connor
Think, Go, I Think, Stifle
All my stories are about the action of grace on a character who is not very willing to support it, but most people think of these stories as hard, hopeless and brutal.
- Flannery O'Connor
Think, Very, Brutal, Hopeless
There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.
- Flannery O'Connor
Teacher, Been, Could, Bestseller
It seems that the fiction writer has a revolting attachment to the poor, for even when he writes about the rich, he is more concerned with what they lack than with what they have.
- Flannery O'Connor
More, Fiction, Concerned, Writes
The writer can choose what he writes about but he cannot choose what he is able to make live.
- Flannery O'Connor
Able, Cannot, About, Writes
The writer operates at a peculiar crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet. His problem is to find that location.
- Flannery O'Connor
Problem, Eternity, His, Peculiar
I am not afraid that the book will be controversial, I'm afraid it will not be controversial.
- Flannery O'Connor
I Am, Will, Afraid, Controversial
I don't have my novel outlined, and I have to write to discover what I am doing. Like the old lady, I don't know so well what I think until I see what I say; then I have to say it over again.
- Flannery O'Connor
Doing, I See, I Think, Old Lady
At its best our age is an age of searchers and discoverers, and at its worst, an age that has domesticated despair and learned to live with it happily.
- Flannery O'Connor
Happily, Searchers, Learned, Despair
I find that most people know what a story is until they sit down to write one.
- Flannery O'Connor
Know, Find, Most, Sit
I do not know You, God, because I am in the way. Please help me to push myself aside.
- Flannery O'Connor
Myself, Please, Am, Push
The writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that does not require his attention.
- Flannery O'Connor
Never, Ashamed, His, Staring
Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay.
- Flannery O'Connor
Hair, Which, Falls, Novel
Conviction without experience makes for harshness.
- Flannery O'Connor
Experience, Makes, Harshness
I don't deserve any credit for turning the other cheek as my tongue is always in it.
- Flannery O'Connor
Funny, Deserve, Always, Credit
The Southerner is usually tolerant of those weaknesses that proceed from innocence.
- Flannery O'Connor
Innocence, Tolerant, Proceed, Southerner
When a book leaves your hands, it belongs to God. He may use it to save a few souls or to try a few others, but I think that for the writer to worry is to take over God's business.
- Flannery O'Connor
Worry, Think, Over, Few
Faith is what someone knows to be true, whether they believe it or not.
- Flannery O'Connor
Be True, Someone, Whether, Knows
The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.
- Flannery O'Connor
Change, Truth, Does, Ability
It is better to be young in your failures than old in your successes.
- Flannery O'Connor
Better, Young, Failures, Successes
I preach there are all kinds of truth, your truth and somebody else's. But behind all of them there is only one truth and that is that there's no truth.
- Flannery O'Connor
Truth, Behind, Kinds, Somebody
I am a writer because writing is the thing I do best.
- Flannery O'Connor
Best, I Am, Writing, Writer
When in Rome, do as you done in Milledgeville.
- Flannery O'Connor
You, Done, Rome
The basis of art is truth, both in matter and in mode.
- Flannery O'Connor
Truth, Art, Basis, Mode
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