“I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say.” Flannery O'Connor --- Day 7/105

Walk: Crissy Field
Distance: 3 miles walking, 1.3 miles run= 4.3 miles, yoga stretch

Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964) with a couple of her peacocks

Last night Ciwt dusted off  her ancient Norton Book of Personal Essays and was re-stunned by Flannery O'Connor's unnervingly distinctive writing. In the ten seemingly effortless pages of her King of the Birds essay O'Connor manages to make peacocks riveting, deeply funny, beautiful, proud, loveable, hateful, heartrending and symbolic way, way beyond their earthbound size.

Here are a few of Ciwt's favorite Flannery O'Connor quotes :

* The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.
* Everywhere I go, I'm asked if the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them.
* Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay. I'm always irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality and it's very shocking to the system. 
* When in Rome, do as you done in Milledgeville. 
And of course: *“Art never responds to the wish to make it democratic; it is not for everybody; it is only for those who are willing to undergo the effort needed to understand it.”  (Ciwt isn't sure she agrees, but loves FO'C said this anyway).