Rebecca > Rebecca's Quotes

“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.”
― Flannery O'Connor

“I don't deserve any credit for turning the other cheek as my tongue is always in it.”
― Flannery O'Connor, The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.”
― Flannery O'Connor, Flannery O'Connor: Collected Works

“She would've been a good woman," said The Misfit, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.”
― Flannery O'Connor, A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories

“Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay. I'm always irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality and it's very shocking to the system.”
― Flannery O'Connor, Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

“All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful.”
― Flannery O'Connor, The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

“I write to discover what I know.”
― Flannery O'Connor

“Only if we are secure in our beliefs can we see the comical side of the universe.”
― Flannery O'Connor

“Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to never was there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it”
― Flannery O' Connor, Wise Blood

“The writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that does not require his attention.”
― Flannery O'Connor

“Anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic.”
― Flannery O'Connor, Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

“A story is a way to say something that can’t be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is.”
― Flannery O'Connor

“She could never be a saint, but she thought she could be a martyr if they killed her quick.”
― Flannery O'Connor

“I come from a family where the only emotion respectable to show is irritation. In some this tendency produces hives, in others literature, in me both.”
― Flannery O'Connor, The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

“I love a lot of people, understand none of them...”
― Flannery O'Connor, The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

“There are all kinds of truth ... but behind all of them there is only one truth and that is that there's no truth.”
― Flannery O'Connor, Wise Blood

“Fiction is about everything human and we are made out of dust, and if you scorn getting yourself dusty, then you shouldn't try to write fiction. It's not a grand enough job for you.”
― Flannery O'Connor

“Faith is what someone knows to be true, whether they believe it or not.”
― Flannery O'Connor, Wise Blood

“Accepting oneself does not preclude an attempt to become better.”
― Flannery O'Connor

“I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say.”
― Flannery O'Connor

“For whatever we lose (like a you or a me),
It's always our self we find in the sea.”
― e.e. cummings, 100 Selected Poems

“Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.”
― John Lennon

“Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering.”
― Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

“When you find your path, you must not be afraid. You need to have sufficient courage to make mistakes. Disappointment, defeat, and despair are the tools God uses to show us the way.”
― Paulo Coelho, Brida