Flannery OConnor Quotes about Writing - Page 3

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There's a certain grain of stupidity that the writer of fiction can hardly do without, and this is the quality of having to stare, of not getting the point at once. The longer you look at one object, the more of the

There's a certain grain of stupidity that the writer of fiction can hardly do without, and this is the quality of having to stare, of not getting the point at once. The longer you look at one object, the more of the world you see in it; and it's well to remember that the serious fiction writer always writes about the whole world.

Flannery O'Connor

Writing, Stupidity, Quality

Flannery O'Connor (1969). “Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose”, p.77, Macmillan

The only way, I think, to learn to write short stories is to write them, and then try to discover what you have done.

Flannery O'Connor

Writing, Thinking, Trying

Flannery O'Connor (1969). “Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose”, p.102, Macmillan

It is always difficult to get across to people who are not professional writers that a talent to write does not mean a talent to write anything at all.

Flannery O'Connor

Writing, Mean, People

Flannery O'Connor (1969). “Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose”, p.215, Macmillan

I have also led you astray by talking of technique as if it were something that could be separated from the rest of the story. Technique can't operate at all, of course, except on believable material.

Flannery O'Connor

Writing, Talking, Technique

Flannery O'Connor (1988). “The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor”, p.171, Macmillan

Far be it for me to have worked it out in any abstract way. I don't know why the bull and Mrs. May have to die, or why Mr. Fortune and Mary Fortune: I just feel in my bones that that is the way it has to be. If I had the abstraction first I don't suppose I would write the story.

Flannery O'Connor

Writing, Empathy, Apathy

As for the blood and the head business, the blood and the head work together and what is not first in the blood can sometimes reach it by going first through the head and what is wrong in the blood can sometimes be tempered by the head.

Flannery O'Connor

Writing, Blood, Working Together