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One result of the stimulation of your intellectual life that takes place in college is usually a shrinking of the imaginative life. This sounds like a paradox, but I have often found it to be true.

— Flannery O'Connor to Alfred Corn (1962)

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More quotes by Flannery O'Connor

You weren't supposed to eat it. (year unkonwn)

I find that most people know what a story is until they sit down to write one.

Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose (1969)

Fiction is about everything human and we are made out of dust, and if you scorn getting yourself dusty, then you shouldn't write fiction. It isn't grand enough for you.

Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose (1969)

The way to despair is to refuse to have any kind of experience.

Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose (1969)

I believe that the basic experience of everyone is the experience of human limitation. ("The Teaching of Literature")

Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose (1969)

All Flannery O'Connor quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Flannery O'Connor (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.