The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

One of my favorite writers is Flannery O'Connor. I think her Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor is one of the greatest books of the 20th century (although I've never seen it on anyone else's list). One can open the book at random and find great pearls of wisdom. I found the following quote by doing just that:

I am very handy with my advice and then when anybody appears to be following it, I get frantic. . . .Don't [write] anything that you are not interested in. . . . start simply with a character or anything that you can make come alive. When you have a character he will create his own situation and his situation will suggest some kind of resolution as you get into it. Wouldn't it be better for you to discover a meaning in what you write than to impose one?

Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor
selected and edited by Sally Fitzgerald (1979)