This is a must read for all those who want to be able to fully understand O'Connor's short stories. After reading this book, I have no doubt that Flannery O'Connnor is not only and amazing writer, but one who truly understands sin and redemption.

A few of my favorite quotes:

"I have heard it said that belief in Christian dogma is a hindrance to the writer, but I myself have found nothing further from the truth. Actually, it frees the storyteller to observe. It is not a set of rules which fixes what he sees in the world. It affects his writing primarily by guaranteeing respect for mystery."

"Redemption is meaningless unless there is a cause for it in the actual life we live, and for the last few centuries there has been operating in our culture the secular belief that there is no such cause."

"To be able to recognize a freak, you have to have some conception of the whole man..."

"The writer operates at a peculiar crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet. His problem is to find that location."

"A gift of any kind is a considerable responsibility."

"Any discipline can help your writing: logic, mathematics, theology, and of course and particularly drawing. Anything that helps you to see, anything that makes you look."

"Your beliefs will be the light by which you see, but they will not be what you see and they will not be a substitute for seeing."

"In my stories a reader will find that the devil accomplishes a good deal of groundwork that seems to be necessary before grace is effective."

"The theologian is interested specifically in the modern novel because there he sees reflected the man of our time, the unbeliever, who is nevertheless grappling in a desperate and usually honest way with intense problems of the spirit."

"The Christian novelist is distinguished from his pagan colleagues by recognizing sin as sin."

"It takes a story to make a story."