Flannery O'Connor · 1281 pages
Rating: (2.9K votes)
“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.”
“The novelist with Christian concerns will find in modern life distortions which are repugnant to him, and his problem will be to make these appear as distortions to an audience which is used to seeing them as natural; and he may well be forced to take ever more violent means to get his vision across to this hostile audience. When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs you do, you can relax a little and use more normal ways of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock -- to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind you draw large and startling figures.”
“The modern hero is the outsider. His experience is rootless. He can go anywhere. He belongs nowhere. Being alien to nothing, he ends up being alienated from any type of community based on common tastes and interests. The borders of his country are the sides of his skull.”
“Art requires a delicate adjustment of the outer and inner worlds in such a way that, without changing their nature, they can be seen through each other.”
“When people have told me that because I am a Catholic, I cannot be an artist, I have had to reply, ruefully, that because I am a Catholic I cannot afford to be less than an artist.”
“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”
“Later I remember what I could do. It’s easy. I could kill them all.”
“باید یک چیز را به من قول بدهی. تو قلب عجیبی داری زه زه
ـ به شما قول می دهم، اما نمی خواهم گولتان بزنم. من قلب عجیبی ندارم. شما این را می گویید چون من را در خانه نمی شناسید
ـ این مهم نیست. برای من تو قلب عجیبی داری. بعد از این نمی خواهم که برایم گل بیاوری، مگر اینکه به تو گلی بدهند. قول می دهی؟
ـ قول می دهم. اما لیوان؟ همیشه خالی می ماند؟
ـ این لیوان دیگر ابداً خالی نمی ماند. وقتی به آن نگاه می کنم قشنگ ترین گلهای دنیا را در آن می بینم و آن وقت فکر می کنم این گل را بهترین شاگردم به من هدیه داده است. قبول؟
دیگر می خندید. دستم را رها کرد و با مهربانی گفت: حالا می توانی بروی، قلب طلایی کوچولو
”
“Those who are comfortable taking chances know that the best way to grow is to reach beyond their grasp. Their sense of direction comes from the heart. They don’t shy away from surprise; they might even seek it out. And they seldom die with regrets. In the end we regret not what we have done but what we have not done.”
“You can't exist in this world with such strong likes and dislikes.”
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