O'Connor

stuff Flannery O'Connor says:

"I believe that there are many rough beasts now slouching toward Bethlehem to be born and that I have reported the progress of a few of them, and when I see these stories described as horror stories I am always amused because the reviewer always has hold of the wrong horror."

"...total non-retention has kept my education from being a burden to me."

"If my mother were to come in [while I read St. Thomas] and say, 'Turn off that light. It's late,' I with lifted finger and broad bland, beatific expression would reply, 'On the contrary, I answer that the light, being eternal and limitless, cannot be turned off. Shut your eyes,' or some such thing."

"I believe and the Church teaches that God is as present in the idiot boy as in the genius."

"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it emotionally. A higher paradox confounds emotion as well as reason and there are long periods in the lives of all of us, and of the saints, when the truth as revealed by faith is hideous, emotionally disturbing, downright repulsive. Witness the dark night of the soul in individual saints. Right now the whole world seems to be going through a dark night of the soul...I must say that the thought of everyone lolling about in an emotionally satisfying faith is repugnant to me."