The operation of the Church is entirely set up for the sinne... - Flannery O'Connor

"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."

"Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to was never there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it. Where is there a place for you to be? No place... Nothing outside you can give you any place... In yourself right now is all the place you've got."

"The basis of art is truth, both in matter and in mode."

"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it."

"Everywhere I go, I am asked if I think university stifles writers. My opinion is that it doesn't stifle enough of them."