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"The fiction writer is an observer, first, last, and always, but he cannot be an adequate observer unless he is free from uncertainty about what he sees. Those who have no absolute values cannot let the relative remain merely relative; they are always raising it to the level of the absolute. The Catholic fiction writer is entirely free to observe. He feels no call to take on the duties of God or to create a new universe. He feels perfectly free to look at the one we already have and to show exactly what he sees."
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Exlpore more Writing quotes
"Writing. Is it a way to be remembered,or a need to become immortal?"
"I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine."
"Between the lines of every book the writer reveals their own secrets."
"My whole theory of writing I can sum up in one sentence. An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmasters of ever afterward."
"Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open."
"Scotland consistently produces world-class writers."
"Actually, the 14 novels were written over a period of just over 6 years."
"When one is writing a novel in the first person, one must be that person."
"Her love of words is a private passion - one she would rather not share. In the house of her childhood though everything had to be shared. If she tried to hold anything back, they would search and find the hidden places. Her written words, discovered, read were just the source of more pain and punishment. This was why she loved poetry. They did not always understand it so they left it alone."
Explore more quotes by Flannery O'Connor
"I have found, in short, from reading my own writing, that my subject in fiction is the action of grace in territory largely held by the devil.I have also found that what I write is read by an audience which puts little stock either in grace or the devil. You discover your audience at the same time and in the same way that you discover your subject, but it is an added blow."
"The operation of the Church is entirely set up for the sinner; which creates much misunderstanding among the smug."
"We are now living in an age which doubts both fact and value. It is the life of this age that we wish to see and judge."
"What one has as a born Catholic is something given and accepted before it is experienced. I am only slowly coming to experience things that I have all along accepted. I suppose the fullest writing comes from what has been accepted and experienced both and that I have just not got that far yet all the time. Conviction without experience makes for harshness."
"The writer operates at a peculiar crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet. His problem is to find that location."
"She had observed that the more education they got, the less they could do. Their father had gone to a one-room schoolhouse through the eighth grade and he could do anything."
"When we get our spiritual house in order, we'll be dead. This goes on. You arrive at enough certainty to be able to make your way, but it is making it in darkness. Don't expect faith to clear things up for you. It is trust, not certainty."
"Virtue must be the only vigorous thing in our lives. Sin is large and stale. You can never finish easting it nor ever digest it. It has to be vomited."
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