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experiencing flannery

Our reading group is delving into the writings of Flannery O'Connor.  Here are a few short quotes from various sources...

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

“All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful.”

“There is something in us, as storytellers and as listeners to stories, that demands the redemptive act, that demands that what falls at least be offered the chance to be restored. The reader of today looks for this motion, and rightly so, but what he has forgotten is the cost of it. His sense of evil is diluted or lacking altogether, and so he has forgotten the price of restoration."   

“I think it is safe to say that while the South is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted.”

“Whenever I’m asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one.”

“Your criticism sounds to me as if you have read too many critical books and are too smart in an artificial, destructive, and very limited way.”

“Conviction without experience makes for harshness."

“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.”

“To know oneself is, above all, to know what one lacks. It is to measure oneself against Truth, and not the other way around. The first product of self-knowledge is humility.”





Comments

The Flannery O'Connor's quotations are well worth meditating upon. indeed, I have printed the quotes so I can study and think about them. Thanks for this outstanding entry. I also like the Bible study questions that I will share with our Bible study group.

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