Flannery O'Connor Stories Quotations

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

A story is a way to say something that can't be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is. You tell a story because a statement would be inadequate. When anybody asks what a story is about, the only proper thing is to tell them to read the story. The meaning of fiction is not abstract meaning but experienced meaning.

I write any sort of rubbish which will cover the main outlines of the story, then I can begin to see it.

When you can state the theme of a story, when you can separate it from the story itself, then you can be sure the story is not a very good one.

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.

When she told a story, she rolled her eyes and waved her head and was very dramatic.

A story has to have muscle as well as meaning, and the meaning has to be in the muscle.

You ought to be able to discover something from your stories. If you don't, probably nobody else will.

I have also led you astray by talking of technique as if it were something that could be separated from the rest of the story. Technique can't operate at all, of course, except on believable material.

The meaning of the story is the story.