"Jesus!" the old lady cried. "You've got good blood! I know you wouldn't shoot a lady! I know you come from nice people! Pray! Jesus, you ought not to shoot a lady. I'll give you all the money I got!"
"Lady," The Misfit said, looking beyond her far into the woods, "there never was a body that give the undertaker a tip."
There were two more pistol reports and the grandmother raised her head like a parched old turkey hen crying for water and called, "Bailey Boy, Bailey Boy!" as if her heart would break.
"Jesus was the only One that ever raised the dead," The Misfit countinued, "and He shouldn't have done it. He thrown everything off balance. If He did what He said, then it's nothing for you to do but thow away everything and follow Him, and if He didn't, then it's nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can -- by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness," he said and his voice had become almost a snarl.
- Flannery O'Connor, "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Phraselet No. 99
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4 comments:
This is off-topic (Because what can you say to O'Conner).
Do you mind if I yoink your little copyright phrase? Obviously I would change the name and dates to fit my blog.
Yes, O'Connor pretty much leaves on in rapt adulation. You mean the little bit under "Stealing Is Bad"? Yoink away. I'm not sure how much good it does, but it at least makes things official.
Thanks.
Hmm. I think my English degree just died a little. I misspelled O'Connor.
De nada. And we are not spelling Nazis here at ISLF. (Which is a way of saying that I had to double check before I hit the "Publish" button.)
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