His friends told him that nobody was interested in his goddam soul unless it was the priest and he managed to answer that no priest taking orders from no pope was going to tamper with his soul. They told him he didn't have any soul and left for the brothel. He took a long time to believe them because he wanted to believe them. All he wanted was to believe them and get rid of it once and for all, and he saw opportunity here to get rid of it without corruption, to be converted to nothing instead of to evil. The army sent him halfway around the world and forgot him. He was wounded and they remembered him long enough to take the shrapnel out of his chest - they said they took it out but they never showed it to him and he felt it still in there, rusted, and poisoning him - and then they sent him to another desert and forgot him again. He had all the time he could want to study his soul in and assure himself that it was not there. When he was thoroughly convinced, he saw that this was something that he had always known. Flannery OConnor
About This Quote

For the most part the soul is not the one that is being discussed here. Instead, the focus is on his friends. He is saying that even when they are his friends they will tell him he doesn't have a soul, when they know very well that he does have a soul. He thought that if he could just prove to them that he does have a soul then they would be willing to stop telling him that he doesn't have one.

Source: Wise Blood

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More Quotes By Flannery OConnor
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