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

"People without hope not only don't write novels, but what is more to the point, they don't read them."

"You know,"Daddy said, "it's some that can live their whole life out without asking about it and it's others has to know why it is, and this boy is one of the latters. He's going to be into everything!"

"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."

"She looked at nice young men as if she could smell their stupidity."

"Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher."