Flannery O'Connor Quotes

The thing we look forward to often comes to pass, but never precisely in the way we have imagined to ourselves.

I see the turning of the page, curtain rising on a new age, see the groom still waiting at the altar.

I suspect the truth is that we are waiting, all of us, against insurmountable odds, for something extraordinary to happen to us.

And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been.

The boy who expects every morning to open into a new world finds that today is like yesterday, but he believes tomorrow will be different.

Hope is in some respects a thing more brilliant, more vivifying, than fruition. What we have looked forward to with eager and earnest aspiration is never in all respects equal to the picture we had formed of it. The very uncertainty enhances the enjoyment.

It will come sometime. Some beautiful morning she will just wake up and find it is Tomorrow. Not Today but Tomorrow. And then things will happen ... wonderful things.

Things will be far worse than they are now. And far better. I wait.

Sufre mas el que espera siempre que aquel que nunca espero a nadie? Does he who is always waiting suffer more than he who’s never waited for anyone?

All I get is tomorrow.

We wait always for something that does not come.

We are waiting for the next moment to contain what this moment does not.

You know things are moving. You're changing, you fellow Dead are changing, the world is ready for something miraculous. What are we waiting for?

I don’t know what’s ahead,” I say. “I don’t know nothing about nothing but whatever it is, it’s gotta be better than what’s behind. It’s gotta be.

Dream on, but don't imagine they'll all come true. When will you realize... Vienna waits for you.

But in the end she merely shrugged, knowing at the very least it would be interesting. Knowing, in her gut, it might just be the beginning.

We all have a suspicion and hope that we've just been part of something special, something that may eventually change our lives. That no one else knows this makes it seem like we are living with a secret that we would like to share, but can't, sort of like having a superpower that's not come online or being president elect. For the moment, our lives proceed as usual, but within a month, we think, everything will change. It's a frustrating, if exciting, disconnect.

I have always found it difficult to wait for things - whether it was to see my father or sailor brother, Alan, again after their long sea trips, or the chance of a better job, or even new curtains.

You see these shuffling rows of shiny faces, waiting for their turn, so they're very dedicated to the program and desperate to know what it is they've got - so often, they have no idea.

He who awaits much can expect little.

Years ago, the writers were telling me that I'd make the Hall of Fame, so I kind of prepared a speech. But somewhere along in the 28 years, it got lost.

I stand before you a changed man. Use me as an example of an instrument of change.

I have ideas all of the time from the beginning, but they never really wind up turning out like I thought they would.

Words can't describe how one would feel in that moment after doing a test for something you really want but in your heart you don't think you have a chance of getting.

I live for what I haven't done.