Flannery O'Connor - Church Quotes

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The Catholic writer, in so far as he has the mind of the Church, will feel life from the standpoint of the central Christian mystery; that it has, for all its horror, been found by God to be worth dying for.

Flannery O'Connor
I'm a member and preacher to that church where the blind don't see and the lame don't walk and what's dead stays that way.

Flannery O'Connor
I don't think literature would be possible in a determined world. We might go through the motions but the heart would be out of it. Nobody could then 'smile darkly and ignore the howls.' Even if there were no Church to teach me this, writing two novels would do it. I think the more you write, the less inclined you will be to rely on theories like determinism. Mystery isn't something that is gradually evaporating. It grows along with knowledge.

Flannery O'Connor
For me it is the virgin birth, the Incarnation, the resurrection which are the true laws of the flesh and the physical. Death, decay, destruction are the suspension of these laws. I am always astonished at the emphasis the Church puts on the body. It is not the soul she says that will rise but the body, glorified.

Flannery O'Connor
When you leave a man alone with his Bible and the Holy Ghost inspires him, he's going to be a Catholic one way or another, even though he knows nothing about the visible church. His kind of Christianity may not be socially desirable, but will be real in the sight of God.

Flannery O'Connor
If you're a Catholic you believe what the Church teaches and the climate makes no difference.

Flannery O'Connor
The operation of the Church is entirely set up for the sinner; which creates much misunderstanding among the smug.

Flannery O'Connor
It began to drizzle rain and he turned on the windshield wipers; they made a great clatter like two idiots clapping in church.

Flannery O'Connor