Flannery O'Connor

“I don't deserve any credit for turning the other cheek as my tongue is always in it.”

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

“At its best our age is an age of searchers and discoverers, and at its worst, an age that has domesticated despair and learned to live with it happily.”

“When a book leaves your hands, it belongs to God. He may use it to save a few souls or to try a few others, but I think that for the writer to worry is to take over God's business.”

“Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay.”

“Faith is what someone knows to be true, whether they believe it or not.”

“Conviction without experience makes for harshness.”

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