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"When in Rome, do as you done in Milledgeville."
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Explore more quotes by Flannery O'Connor
"It seems that the fiction writer has a revolting attachment to the poor, for even when he writes about the rich, he is more concerned with what they lack than with what they have."
"I don't recall that when I was in high school or college, any novel was ever presented to me to study as a novel. In fact, I was well on the way to getting a Master's degree in English before I really knew what fiction was, and I doubt if I would ever have learned then, had I not been trying to write it. I believe that it's perfectly possible to run a course of academic degrees in English and to emerge a seemingly respectable Ph.D. and still not know how to read fiction."
"If you do the same thing every day at the same time for the same length of time you'll save yourself from many a sink. Routine is a condition of survival."
"When people have told me that because I am a Catholic, I cannot be an artist, I have had to reply, ruefully, that because I am a Catholic I cannot afford to be less than an artist."
"When something is finished, it cannot be possessed. Nothing can be possessed but the struggle."
"When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs you do, you can relax and use more normal means of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock -- to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures."
"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."
"Everywhere I go, I am asked if I think university stifles writers. My opinion is that it doesn't stifle enough of them."
Exlpore more Adaptation quotes
"When fiction has become reality, life may turn into a fairy tale or a firestorm. Tina, time has come to pull up one's socks and start relearning and reassessing living. ['Another empty room']"
"Rather than waste or eliminate items which you don't currently use, discover a new way to improve and enjoy their value. What strengths and talents can you repurpose for a new endeavor? How can you re-purpose your thoughts to ensure they help you rather than hinder?"
"She was not vain enough to work her will against the world. But she could use the things the world had given her."
"But change proves that you are still alive. Change often measures our tolerance for folk different from ourselves. Can we accept their languages, their customs, their garments, and their foods into our own lives? If we can, then we form bonds, bonds that make wars less likely. If we cannot, if we believe that we must do things as we have always done them, then we must either fight to remain as we are, or die."
"After awhile you could get used to anything."
"If you want your tree to produce plenty o' fruit, you've got to cut it back from time to time. Same thing with your neural cells. Some people might call it brain damage. I call it prunin'."
"If there is no room in the river, swim to the ocean."
"There are no conditions to which a man cannot become used, especially if he sees that all around him are living in the same way."
"In a village where everyone has only one leg, the biped will hop about more lamely than anyone else, if he knows what is good for him."
"When you move to a new environment with cultural and social characteristics different from your own, it is only logical, that you loosen some of the knots of your religious doctrines, to embrace the new and vivid environment as much as you wish to be embraced by the environment."
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