Flannery O'Connor

I believe firmly in mystery and manners.

[Flannery O'Connor @flanneryoconnor]

There are some who will find almost everything in bad taste, from spitting in the street to Christ's association with Mary Magdalen.

[Flannery O'Connor @flanneryoconnor]

Fiction is the concrete expression of mystery--mystery that is lived.

[Flannery O'Connor @flanneryoconnor]

I’m always irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality.

[Flannery O'Connor @flanneryoconnor]

Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay.

[Flannery O'Connor @flanneryoconnor]

You will observe that I admire my own work as much if not more than anybody else does.

[Flannery O'Connor @flanneryoconnor]

I am learning that I had better be careful what I say... as the simplest things are going to be repeated...

[Flannery O'Connor @flanneryoconnor]

You can't clobber any reader while he is looking. You divert his attention, then you clobber him, and he never knows what hit him.

[Flannery O'Connor @flanneryoconnor]

If there is no possibility for change in a character, we have no interest in him.

[Flannery O'Connor @flanneryoconnor]

I suppose you come to know yourself as much by what you throw away as what you keep and at times it is appalling.

[Flannery O'Connor @flanneryoconnor]

Today is my very own birthday.

[Flannery O'Connor @flanneryoconnor]

@kaseybyrneee yours aren't anything to speak of either.

[Flannery O'Connor @flanneryoconnor]

I always get trapped in my own economies.

[Flannery O'Connor @flanneryoconnor]

I bought the Wilbur Cash book once because it cost 95¢ and I have never read it for the same reason.

[Flannery O'Connor @flanneryoconnor]

I think you ought to write a lot and the more you write the more complete your stories will become.

[Flannery O'Connor @flanneryoconnor]

I think you do what many writers do who haven’t written a great many stories — try to be subtle.

[Flannery O'Connor @flanneryoconnor]

Well I thanks you for my birthday message. I am thirty-five and still have all my teeth.

[Flannery O'Connor @flanneryoconnor]

To be great storytellers, we need something to measure ourselves against, and this is what we conspicuously lack in this age.

[Flannery O'Connor @flanneryoconnor]

I am of the school that wants rotgut labelled whether it's in a rosewater bottle or not.

[Flannery O'Connor @flanneryoconnor]

There is one advantage in it because although you see several people you wish you didn't know, you see thousands you're glad you don't know.

[Flannery O'Connor @flanneryoconnor]

Just got back from 2 days in NYC.