“If you believed in Jesus, you wouldn’t be so good” by Flannery O’Connor

“‘For myself,’ she continued, ‘I don’t have that streak. I believe that what’s right today is wrong tomorrow and that the time to enjoy yourself is now, so long as you let others do the same. I’m as good, Mr. Motes,’ she said, ‘not believing in Jesus as a many a one that does.’

‘You’re better,’ he said, leaning forward suddenly. ‘If you believed in Jesus, you wouldn’t be so good.'”

–Flannery O’Connor, Wise Blood (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1949/2007), 225.

“The way to avoid Jesus” by Flannery O’Connor

“The boy didn’t need to hear it. There was already a deep black wordless conviction in him that the way to avoid Jesus was to avoid sin.”

–Flannery O’Connor, Wise Blood: A Novel (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1949/2001), 22.