Mary Flannery O'Connor, 1925 - 1964
Autograph party for Wise Blood (Ca. 1952)
Born: 25 March 1925, Savannah, Georgia
Died: 3 August 1964, Milledgeville, Georgia
O'Connor's parents came from two wealthy Catholic families but she lived most of her life in the "Bible Belt". The family moved to a farm at Milledgeville in 1938, two years later she lost her father to lupus, the disease she would later suffer from. There she attended Peabody Laboratory School, graduating in 1942, she followed an accelerated program at Georgia State College for Women, graduating in 1945, then won a journalism scholarship at the State University of Iowa but soon transferred to the now-famous Iowa Writers' Workshop. She was living in Connecticut when she was diagnosed with lupus and given five years to live. She returned to Georgia and held out for fourteen years, writing every day (two novels and three short story collections) and corresponding with both well-known writers and many who wanted to become writers. She raised a variety of domestic birds but was partial to peafowl, having over a hundred of them. During the last eight years of her life she also was a reviewer for the magazine of the Roman Catholic diocese, about a hundred serious theological books were covered and the reviews were well regarded.
Biography from Wikipedia and the New Georgia Encyclopedia
Flannery O'Connor quotes:
Quotes found : 84 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 6) 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next
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- A gift of any kind is a considerable responsibility. It is a mystery in itself, something gratuitous and wholly undeserved, something whose real uses will probably always be hidden from us. permalink
Flannery O'Connor - A story is a way to say something that can't be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is. permalink
Flannery O'Connor - A working knowledge of the devil can be very well had from resisting him. permalink
Flannery O'Connor - Accepting oneself does not preclude an attempt to become better. permalink
Flannery O'Connor - All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful. permalink
Flannery O'Connor - The Habit of Being (letters, published 1979) - All my stories are about the action of grace on a character who is not very willing to support it, but most people think of these stories as hard, hopeless and brutal. permalink
Flannery O'Connor - A Good Man Is Hard to Find (1955) - Anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days. permalink
Flannery O'Connor - Anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic. permalink
Flannery O'Connor - Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose (1969) - Art never responds to the wish to make it democratic; it is not for everybody; it is only for those who are willing to undergo the effort needed to understand it. permalink
Flannery O'Connor - Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose (1969) - Art transcends its limitations only by staying within them. permalink
Flannery O'Connor - 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. permalink
Flannery O'Connor - Children know by instinct that hell is an absence of love, and they can pick out theirs without missing. permalink
Flannery O'Connor - The Habit of Being (letters, published 1979) - Conviction without experience makes for harshness. permalink
Flannery O'Connor - The Habit of Being (letters, published 1979) - Discovering the Church is apt to be a slow procedure but it can take place if you have a free mind and no vested interest in disbelief... permalink
Flannery O'Connor - Doctors always think anybody doing something they aren't is a quack; also they think all patients are idiots. permalink
Flannery O'Connor
Quotes found : 84 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 6) 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next
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