“I am no vague believer. I see from the standpoint of Christian orthodoxy. This means that for me the meaning of life is centered in our Redemption by Christ and that what I see in the world I see its relation to that. I don’t think that this is a position that can be taken halfway or one that is particularly easy in these times to make transparent in fiction.”

–Flannery O’Connor, “The Fiction Writer and His Country,” in Flannery O’Connor: Collected Works, (New York: Library of America, 1988), 804-805.