Eastern North Carolina Quotes

I grew up in a university town in eastern North Carolina - what's called Tobacco Road. It was very rural. ~ Garth Risk Hallberg

I didn't grow up on any sort of border; more in the middle of nowhere, in rural eastern North Carolina. ~ Tim Pratt

I suppose more than anything, it's the way of life in this part of the country that influences my writing. In Eastern North Carolina, with the exception of Wilmington, most people live in small towns. ~ Nicholas Sparks

If you like old cars detective, eastern North Carolina is perfect for you" he said smoothing his tie. "We have oodles of vintage vehicles around here, don't we Colonel? In fact I like to think of them as one of poverty's little perks. ~ Sheila Turnage

I'm writing a new love story, set in eastern North Carolina. Surprise, surprise, huh? ~ Nicholas Sparks

Goldsboro, North Carolina. ~ John Feinstein

I'm sure you remember our first encounter, the morning in the kitchen in North Carolina, and what a disaster it turned out to be," Carmine said.

"What you don't know, though, is that as we sat like idiots in that puddle of juice, all I could think about was how beautiful you were. How beautiful you are. You were scared and confused, and I know I wasn't helping that, but underneath it all you were just beautiful, Haven. You had me the very first time I laid eyes on you. I remember thinking later that morning you were going to complicate my life." He paused as he laughed to himself. "And complicate it you did. Everything I knew, everything I believed . . . all of it went out the window. You turned me upside down and made me feel again. You saved my life, even though I didn't realize it needed to be saved. I thought I was fine, that I didn't need anyone else, but I was wrong, because I do. I need you. Christ, I - "

He grasped her chin gently and leaned forward, her eyes drifting closed as their lips came together. His kiss was sweet but there was passion behind it . . . passion she looked forward to feeling for the rest of her life. ~ J.M. Darhower

Everything changes except human behavior and its consequences. ~ Stephanie M. Sellers

North America can easily fragment quickly as did the Eastern Bloc in 1989. ~ Douglas Coupland

The current fast food fuss obscures the reality that such foods are ancient. Fried kibbeh, sausages, olives, nuts, small pizzas, and flat breads have been sold on the streets of Middle Eastern and North African cities for a cycle of centuries; Marco Polo reported barbequed meats, deep-fried delicacies, and even roast lamb for sale in Chinese markets. ~ Kenneth F. Kiple

Maybe nostalgia is itself the problem. A Democrat I met in Macon during a conversation we had about the local enthusiasm for Trump told me that "people want to go back to Mayberry", the setting of the beloved old Andy Griffith Show. (As it happens, the actual model for Mayberry, Mount Airy, a bedraggled town in North Carolina, has gone all in on the Trump revolution, as the Washington Post recently reported.)

Maybe it's also true, as my liberal friends believe, that what people in this part of the country secretly long to go back to are the days when the Klan was riding high or when Quantrill was terrorizing the people of neighboring Kansas, or when Dred Scott was losing his famous court case. For sure, there is a streak of that ugly sentiment in the Trump phenomenon.

But I want to suggest something different: that the nostalgic urge does not necessarily have to be a reactionary one. There is nothing un-progressive about wanting your town to thrive, about recognizing that it isn't thriving today, about figuring out that the mid-century, liberal way worked better.

For me, at least, that is how nostalgia unfolds. When I drive around this part of the country, I always do so with a WPA guidebook in hand, the better to help me locate the architectural achievements of the Roosevelt years. I used to patronize a list of restaurants supposedly favored by Harry Truman (they are slowly disappearing).

And these days, as I pass Trump sign after ~ Thomas Frank

Ethical counsel from the Under White Mountain people, far down the eastern coast of the Inland Sea, was not very well received. They advised: 'Do not fight these sick people, cure them with human behavior,' to which Rekwit responded tersely, 'You come up north here and do that. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

Not too long ago, my opponent made a prediction. He said I would probably win Pennsylvania, he would win North Carolina, and Indiana would be the tiebreaker. Well, tonight we've come from behind, we've broken the tie, and, thanks to you, it's full speed on to the White House. ~ Hillary Clinton

Early college high schools in North Carolina and across the country show us that challenge - not remediation - is an approach to education that works. ~ Michael F. Easley

It still surprises me when I find something in any North Carolina newspaper that isn't mad at me about something. ~ Jesse Helms

On the Today show, there was a story about a new poll that had been conducted regarding religious beliefs. A majority of Americans reported that they believed in angels, and a significant number thought they were personally protected by a guardian angel. He changed the channel to CNN, where they were covering a shooting at a North Carolina high school, a subject more comfortingly normal. ~ Bentley Little

North Carolina has been so great because nobody asks me about work. ~ Andie MacDowell

This is an area where North Carolina does excel. I have known more colorful North Carolina political figures than I have colorless ones. ~ Jesse Helms

To the furniture worker's child in North Carolina who wants to become a doctor or a scientist, an engineer or an entrepreneur, a diplomat or even a president
that's the future we hope for. That's the vision we share. That's where we need to go
forward ~ Barack Obama

Even in the domain of conventional currencies, this trend is in evidence. Today, 14 U.S. states, namely, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington, have taken action to create their own state currency, usually backed by a precious metal such as gold or silver.24 In the case of Utah, for example, the Utah Legislature has passed a bill allowing gold and silver coins to be used as legal tender in the state - and for the value of their precious metal, not just the face value of the coins. Utah's bill allows stores to accept gold and silver coins as legal tender. It also exempts gold and silver transactions from the state's capital gains tax, though that does not shield exchanges from federal taxes. ~ Bernard A. Lietaer

I have lots of things to teach you now, in case we ever meet, concerning the message that was transmitted to me under a pine tree in North Carolina on a cold winter moonlit night. It said that Nothing Ever Happened, so don't worry. It's all like a dream. Everything is ecstasy, inside. We just don't know it because of our thinking-minds. But in our true blissful essence of mind is known that everything is alright forever and forever and forever. Close your eyes, let your hands and nerve-ends drop, stop breathing for 3 seconds, listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world, and you will remember the lesson you forgot, which was taught in immense milky way soft cloud innumerable worlds long ago and not even at all. It is all one vast awakened thing. I call it the golden eternity. It is perfect. We were never really born, we will never really die. It has nothing to do with the imaginary idea of a personal self, other selves, many selves everywhere: Self is only an idea, a mortal idea. That which passes into everything is one thing. It's a dream already ended. There's nothing to be afraid of and nothing to be glad about. I know this from staring at mountains months on end. They never show any expression, they are like empty space. Do you think the emptiness of space will ever crumble away? Mountains will crumble, but the emptiness of space, which is the one universal essence of mind, the vast awakenerhood, empty and awake, will never crumble away because it was never born ~ Jack Kerouac

The Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity or Libertad Act of 1996, better known as the Helms-Burton Act, was passed by the 104th United States Congress on March 6, 1996 and enacted into law by President Bill Clinton on March 12, 1996. Its intention was to bolster and continue the United States embargo against Cuba. It also opposes Cuban membership in international institutions, and prohibits commercial television broadcasts from the United States to Cuba. Further, the law provides for protection of the property rights of certain United States nationals and the property formerly owned by U.S. citizens but confiscated by Cuba after the Cuban revolution, The Act is named for the original sponsors, Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, and Representative Dan Burton of Indiana. ~ Hank Bracker

John Edwards makes us all proud to be Americans, and those of us from North Carolina are even more proud to claim him, for he represents the best that we can offer America at a time when strong, positive leadership is needed. ~ Harvey Gantt

Well what are our geopolitical objectives? First, that North America be peaceful, prosperous, dominated by the United States. Second, that no nation be able to approach the United States militarily ... Those are the goals. It's very simple. We achieve that by making certain that all conflict takes place in the Eastern Hemisphere so we don't have conflict here. ~ George Friedman

Voters replaced Democratic senators with Republicans in Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, North Carolina, Montana, South Dakota, West Virginia, and likely in Alaska, and appear on track to do so in a runoff next month in Louisiana. At the same time, voters kept Republicans in GOP seats in heavily contested races in Georgia, Kansas, and Kentucky. That is at least ten, and as many as a dozen, tough races, without a single Republican seat changing hands. Tuesday's voting was a wave alright - a very anti-Democratic wave. ~ Byron York

Arising there, a china cabinet, its gifts enclosed in a hug.
Atop a pedestal table, hand-sanded and love-stained,
Mom's Christmas cactus trails and cascades in forest greens
awaiting pink-winged petals alighting in season, a crescendo of bloom framed an autumn-light meandering through remembrance like a dream. ~ Christina M. Ward

I'd been awake for thirty-six hours and driving for ten. Restless weeks, sleepless nights, and the decision stole into me like a thief. I never planned to go back to North Carolina- I'd buried it- but I blinked and found my hands on the wheel, Manhattan a sinking island to the north. I wore a week-old beard and three day denim, felt stretched by an edginess that bordered on pain, but no one here would fail to recognize me. That's what home was all about, for good or bad. ~ John Hart

While writing 'Cold Mountain,' I held maps of two geographies, two worlds, in my mind as I wrote. One was an early map of North Carolina. Overlaying it, though, was an imagined map of the landscape Jack travels in the southern Appalachian folktales. He's much the same Jack who climbs the beanstalk, vulnerable and clever and opportunistic. ~ Charles Frazier

At the North Carolina border, the dull landscape ended abruptly, as if by decree. Suddenly the countryside rose and fell in majestic undulations, full of creeping thickets of laurel, rhododendron and palmetto. ~ Bill Bryson

An analysis of nutritional and metabolic data by Jon Pangborn, Ph.D., a well-known nutritional biochemist affiliated with the Great Smokies Diagnostic Laboratories in Asheville, North Carolina, found that the metabolism of methionine is the "most frequently impaired or disordered amino acid" among 1,500 individuals with food and chemical intolerances, degenerative diseases, neuromuscular dysfunction, and mental diseases. ~ Stanley W. Jacob

Lady and gentleman, when my parents left Korea with nothing but the clothes on their backs and the considerable wealth they had amassed in the shipping business, they had a dream. They had a dream that one day amid the snowy hilltops of western North Carolina, their son would lose his virginity to a cheerleader in the woman's bathroom of a Waffle House just off the interstate. My parents have sacrificed so much for this dream! And that is why we must journey on, despite all trials and tribulations! Not for me and least of all for the poor cheerleader in question, but for my parents and indeed for all immigrants who came to his great nation in what they themselves could never have: CHEERLEADER SEX. ~ John Green

I did not walk every step of the Trail of Tears at one time. Instead, over the last 20 years, I have walked various segments of it in Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. ~ Joseph Bruchac

A seamlessly told and scrupulously detailed history of the Hartsoe clan of Haw County, North Carolina, Love and Lament is that rare novel that brings the gritty, rural past to vivid life. I could very nearly smell the moonshine (the moonshiners too!). Pass a few hours with Mary Bet Hartsoe and family. You won't regret it. ~ T. R. Pearson

There're three ways to get there from here, each one worse than the last. You can either hold your breath through the plague colonies, slip through Slaverville, or take the mountain route." Something flashed in his expression, something somber, which seemed out of place on his animated face. "That's where the cannibals really like to hole up."
"You've seen them?" I asked.
"Oh, yeah. And it's, like, totally worse than you can imagine. Their steady diet of grilled Homo sapiens really screws with their heads. And the miner cannibals in North Carolina? They're the worst! Dude. They don't even grill. ~ Kresley Cole

There is no question that the Deep South seceded and fought the civil war to defend slavery. And its leaders made no secret of this motive. Slavery they argued Ad nauseam was the foundation for a virtuous biblically sanctioned social system superior to that of the free states. When 19th century deep southerners spoke of defending their "traditions", "heritage", and way of life they proudly identified the enslavement of others as the center piece of all three. Indeed, many of their leaders even argued that all lower class people should be enslaved regardless of race for their own good.
In response to Yankee and midland abolitionist the Deep South's leaders developed an elaborate defense for human bondage. James Henry Hammond, former governor of South Carolina, published a seminal book arguing that enslaved laborers where happier, fitter and better looked after than their free counter parts in Brittan and the North, who were ruthlessly exploited by industrial capitalists. Free societies were therefore unstable as there was always a danger that the exploited would rise up creating a fearful crisis in republican institutions. Salves by contrast were kept in their place by violent means and denied the right to vote, resist or testify, ensuring the foundation of every well designed and durable republic.
Enslavement of the white working class would be in his words a most glorious act of emancipation. Jefferson's notion all men are created equal, he wrote, was ridiculousl ~ Colin Woodard

Putting the Lost Cause to work, however, necessitated a good measure of willful forgetting. Confederate memorialists proved equal to the task. "The world has been wickedly taught and foolishly believes that we resorted to war solely to preserve our institution of African slavery," General John S. Preston told a SASC meeting in Columbia in 1870. If anyone knew what had led to the Civil War, it was Preston, who not only attended the South Carolina Secession Convention but also served as the state's official delegate to Virginia's secession convention. The North and South were antagonistic societies whose differences were fundamentally rooted in slavery and race, he had told the Virginia convention in February 1861. But a decade later, Preston preached that slavery had not been the animating cause of secession at all. ~ Ethan J. Kytle

It was tangible and real, close enough to allow me to dream of moving back to North Carolina; on the other hand, it unfortunately made time slow down. Isn't that the way it always is when you really want something? ~ Nicholas Sparks