Born in Savannah, and raised in Milledgeville, Georgia, Flannery O'Connor became a champion of The Southern Gothic literary movement. A genre of literature that sought to undercut, and interrogate various issues that continued to dog the American South, specifically Lost Cause ideology -- a set of beliefs and customs concerning gender roles and racial prejudice those dwelling beneath The Mason-Dixon line sought to maintain after Civil War and the dissolution of The Confederacy.

Praised for her use of grotesque characters suffering from physical deformities, and placing them in violent situations combined with her ability to transcend limitations often prescribed to disabilities, race, criminality, and religion, O'Connor's work consisting of two novels and several collections of short stories garnered her a National Book Award in 1972. Here are 5 of the best lines delivered by one of the greatest storytellers to ever emerge from The Deep South along with the likes of William Faulkner and Harper Lee:

Although Flannery O'Connor only survived until a year shy of her fortieth birthday, in memory survives her stories that linger on the shelves of libraries and bookstores. Serving to remind us that while we may not come to embody the beauty we perceive in others, or arrive in places ever fair to gaze upon, we will still be something, and we will still arrive somewhere. Somewhere where all that is beautiful and fair rests in the arriving as much as it does in being.