North Carolina Quotes

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

North Carolina is strong because our people are strong. They define our state - by their hard work, commitment to their families and neighbors, their willingness to sacrifice so that their children can have a chance to forge their own path. ~ Kay Hagan

Now he laughs for real, cackling with the wicked innocence of the bright and easily bored. Staff Sergeant David Dime is a twenty-four-year-old college dropout from North Carolina who subscribes to the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Maxim, Wired, Harper's, Fortune, and DicE Magazine, all of which he reads in addition to three or four books a week, mostly used textbooks on history and politics that his insanely hot sister sends from Chapel Hill. There are stories that he went to college on a golf scholarship, which he denies. That he was a star quarterback in high school, which he claims not to remember, though one day a football surfaced at FOB Viper, and Dime, caught up in the moment, perhaps, nostalgia triggering some long-dormant muscle memory, uncorked a sixty-yard spiral that sailed over Day's head into the base motor pool. ~ Ben Fountain

People will always go to games. And not just Duke versus North Carolina. Even Appalachian State against Chatworth. ~ Sonny Vaccaro

Among the early commercial adopters of wild beer were the Cottonwood Brewery of Boone, North Carolina, and Joe's Brewery of Champaign, Illinois. Brewer John Isenhour gained a "cult status" for his production of beers with a lambic profile in the mid-1990s using wild yeast and bacteria that he kept active at various stages of the lambic fermentation cycle. John quite successfully marketed the "Lambic" to his rather conservative clientele in this central Illinois college town as "Belgian lemonade. ~ Jeff Sparrow

As I finished my rice, I sketched out the plot of a pornographic adventure film called The Massage Room. Sirien, a young girl from northern Thailand, falls hopelessly in love with Bob, an American student who winds up in the massage parlor by accident, dragged there by his buddies after a fatefully boozy evening. Bob doesn't touch her, he's happy just to look at her with his lovely, pale-blue eyes and tell her about his hometown - in North Carolina, or somewhere like that. They see each other several more times, whenever Sirien isn't working, but, sadly, Bob must leave to finish his senior year at Yale. Ellipsis. Sirien waits expectantly while continuing to satisfy the needs of her numerous clients. Though pure at heart, she fervently jerks off and sucks paunchy, mustached Frenchmen (supporting role for Gerard Jugnot), corpulent, bald Germans (supporting role for some German actor). Finally, Bob returns and tries to free her from her hell - but the Chinese mafia doesn't see things in quite the same light. Bob persuades the American ambassador and the president of some humanitarian organization opposed to the exploitation of young girls to intervene (supporting role for Jane Fonda). What with the Chinese mafia (hint at the Triads) and the collusion of Thai generals (political angle, appeal to democratic values), there would be a lot of fight scenes and chase sequences through the streets of Bangkok. At the end of the day, Bob carries her off. But in the penultimate scene, Siri ~ Michel Houellebecq

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

How many of you think it is time for American to stop pretending we are not Christian? If there's people in King, North Carolina who don't like that, there's lots of places you can move to. ~ David Gene Gibbs

Allowing unelected judges to declare laws enacted by popularly elected legislatures unconstitutional and invalid seemed flagrantly inconsistent with free popular government. Such judicial usurpation, said Richard Dobbs Spaight, delegate to the Constitutional Convention from North Carolina, was "absurd" and "operated as an absolute negative on the proceedings of the Legislature, which no judiciary ought ever to possess." Instead of being governed by their representatives in the assembly, the people would be subject to the will of a few individuals in the court, "who united in their own persons the legislative and judiciary powers," making the courts more despotic than the Roman decemvirate or of any monarchy in Europe. ~ Gordon S. Wood

So Captain Jack's come a-courtin'." Her hands stilled on the basket. "Who?" "The tall Shawnee who come by your cabin." The tall one. Lael felt a small surge of triumph at learning his name. Captain Jack. Oddly, she felt no embarrassment. Lifting her shoulders in a slight shrug, she continued pulling the vines into a tight circle. "He come by, but I don't know why." "Best take a long look in the mirror, then." Lael's eyes roamed the dark walls. Ma Horn didn't own one. "Beads and a blanket, was it?" She nodded and looked back down. "I still can't figure out why some Shawnee would pay any mind to a white girl like me." Ma Horn chuckled, her face alight in the dimness. "Why, Captain Jack's as white as you are." "What?" she blurted, eyes wide as a child's. Ma Horn's smile turned sober. "He's no Indian, Shawnee or otherwise, so your pa says. He was took as a child from some-wheres in North Carolina. All he can remember of his past life is his white name - Jack. ~ Laura Frantz

I made a ridiculous statement when I first went to North Carolina State. I said I know basketball down there was like life or death. It was very wrong. It's more important. ~ Jim Valvano

North Carolina is temperate and populated with well-meaning people; therefore I will engage in oral sex with another man. ~ David Sedaris

No hard figures are available on how much was actually paid out or how many Friends complied with the request of their Yearly Meeting. For those who did pay their slaves, it was common to use the yearly wage of the day. We do know that one Mr. F. Buxton, in an appeal before the British House of Commons to abolish slavery, said that it had cost North Carolina Friends fifty thousand pounds to release their slaves.14 For some southern Friends emancipation of their slaves meant financial bankruptcy; for many, if not most, it meant eventual migration to the North. ~ Richard J. Foster

In rural North Carolina, you can get lots of great advice about how to clean and quarter a deer carcass, but we didn't really have anyone to ask for video advice, so we just kept learning through trial and error. ~ Rhett McLaughlin

I was 16 when I came to New York. I had graduated to a tenor banjo in the school jazz band, and it was kind of boring - just chords, chords, chords. Then my father took me to a mountain music and dance festival in Asheville, North Carolina, and there I saw relatively uneducated people playing great music by ear. ~ Pete Seeger

I'm a pretty low-key North Carolina boy. I like to go fishing and hang out with my friends. ~ Scotty McCreery

The tide, you see, is a fickle thing: stealing in, sliding away, always, always turning. She comes when you're not looking, a silent, liquid thief, only to rush away again, retreating from the shore like a coward. She gives sometimes too, though in fleeting, unexpected moments, yielding up her treasures and her dead--but never, ever her secrets. ~ Barbara Davis

In the depth of the near depression, that he faced when he came in, Barack Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress provided 'recovery funds' that literally kept our classrooms open. Two years ago, these funds saved nearly 20,000 teacher and education jobs - just here in North Carolina. ~ Jim Hunt

Though the trials of life are never easy, someone to stand with you and help you with your burdens is one of the true essences of living. It is well that two should join together to face life as friends as well as lovers. ~ Micheal Rivers

I was an English major in college, and then I went to graduate school in English at the University of North Carolina for three years. ~ Elizabeth Edwards

In North Carolina nobody bothers us; we're all about concentrating on the work or our auditions that we're trying to get a flight out for. So all that crap is not something that I'm confronted with on a daily basis. ~ Katie Holmes

I was still hoping that it might be a phase, that I'd wake up the next day and be normal. In the best of times, it seemed like such a short leap. I did fantasize about having a girlfriend - never the sex part, but the rest of it I had down. I knew what she'd look like and how she'd hold her long hair back from the flame when bending over a lit candle. I imagined us getting married the summer after I graduated from college, and then I imagined her drowning off the coast of North Carolina during one of my family's vacations. Everyone needed to be there so they could see just how devastated I was. I could actually make myself cry by picturing it: How I'd carry her out of the water, how my feet would sink into the sand owing to the extra weight. I'd try mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and keep trying until someone, my father most often, would pull me back, saying, "It's too late, son. Can't you see she's gone?"

It seemed I wanted to marry just so I could be a widower. So profound would be my grief that I'd never look at another woman again. It was perfect, really. Oh, there were variations. Sometimes she'd die of leukemia, as in the movie Love Story. Occasionally a madman's bullet would fell her during a hostage situation, but always I'd be at her side, trying everything in my power to bring her back.

The fantasy remained active until I was twenty. Funny how unimportant being gay became once I told somebody. All I had to do was open up to my best friend, and w ~ David Sedaris

From the line, watching, three things are striking: (a) what on TV is a brisk crack is here a whooming roar that apparently is what a shotgun really sounds like; (b) trapshooting looks comparatively easy, because now the stocky older guy who's replaced the trim bearded guy at the rail is also blowing these little fluorescent plates away one after the other, so that a steady rain of lumpy orange crud is falling into the Nadir's wake; (c) a clay pigeon, when shot, undergoes a frighteningly familiar-looking midflight peripeteia -- erupting material, changing vector, and plummeting seaward in a corkscrewy way that all eerily recalls footage of the 1986 Challenger disaster.

All the shooters who precede me seem to fire with a kind of casual scorn, and all get eight out of ten or above. But it turns out that, of these six guys, three have military-combat backgrounds, another two are L. L. Bean-model-type brothers who spend weeks every year hunting various fast-flying species with their "Papa" in southern Canada, and the last has got not only his own earmuffs, plus his own shotgun in a special crushed-velvet-lined case, but also his own trapshooting range in his backyard (31) in North Carolina. When it's finally my turn, the earmuffs they give me have somebody else's ear-oil on them and don't fit my head very well. The gun itself is shockingly heavy and stinks of what I'm told is cordite, small pubic spirals of which are still exiting the barrel from the Korea-vet who prec ~ David Foster Wallace

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

Lee Mellon told me that he was born in Meridian, Mississippi, and grew up in Florida, Virginia, and North Carolina, 'Near Asheville,' he said. 'That's Thomas Wolfe country.'

'Yeah,' I said.

Lee Mellon didn't have any Southern accent. 'You don't have much of a Southern accent,' I said.

'That's right, Jesse. I read a lot of Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and Kant when I was a kid,' Lee Mellon said.

I guess in some strange way that was supposed to get rid of a Southern accent. Lee Mellon thought so, anyway. I couldn't argue because I had never tried a Southern accent against the German philosophers. ~ Richard Brautigan

I went to college at North Carolina School of the Arts and took a lot of singing classes, and it really is so connected to emotions. ~ Anna Camp

I do mostly Southern landscapes. I do beautiful old barns that are falling down, and beautiful trees reflecting in the water. My lovely wife Dorothy and I travel quite a bit, so I take pictures of different things that inspire me to come home, when I come home here in North Carolina, into my art studio and paint these things. ~ James Best

We're not unique in our family. We're more ambitious but we're not special. I'm not funnier than anyone else in my family; it's just that we wanted more than Raleigh, North Carolina, had to offer. If my brother wanted more than Raleigh had to offer, you would know his name. My sister Lisa has a really unique and different voice, but she doesn't want that. She's a fine writer, but never said, "I want a book. I want that kind of attention." ~ David Sedaris

I'm too old to be ignorant as I am."
--Twelve-year-old Gabriella to the general, who does not want her to know about Emmett Till and the world's brutality. ~ Elle Thornton

In North Carolina, I stopped to gas up at a Humble Oil station, then walked around the corner to use the toilet. There were two doors and three signs. MEN was neatly stenciled over one door, LADIES over the other. The third sign was an arrow on a stick. It pointed toward the brush-covered slope behind the station. It said COLORED. Curious, I walked down the path, being careful to sidle at a couple of points where the oily, green-shading-to-maroon leaves of poison ivy were unmistakable ... There was no facility. What I found at the end of the path was a narrow stream with a board laid across it on a couple of crumbling concrete posts ... If I ever give you the idea that 1958's all Andy-n-Opie, remember the path, okay? The one lined with poison ivy. And the board over the stream. ~ Stephen King

When I was in second grade, my mother moved from Miami to this evangelical conservative environment in western North Carolina, two miles down the road from Billy Graham and his wife, Ruth. ~ Patricia Cornwell

I'd never get elected if people in North Carolina realized how liberal I am. ~ Dean Smith

But death, even as grisly a death as his, could not lay Blackbeard to rest. Reports have put his restless spirit on Ocracoke Island, North Carolina, scene of some of his rowdiest bacchanals where his favorite anchorage is known to this day as Teach's Hole. ~ Nicholas Jeffries

Five states - Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Illinois and North Carolina - have been identified by the EPA as contributing significantly to Rhode Island pollution. As of 2010, 284 tall smokestacks - stacks over 500 feet - were operating in the United States: needles injecting poison into the atmosphere. ~ Sheldon Whitehouse

The scenic vistas of North Carolina and Tennessee make you feel like you're looking at a work of art, but crossing through the rural countryside of southwest Virginia and caressing the tall grass with your fingertips, you feel like you're part of the painting. ~ Jennifer Pharr Davis

Michael Jordan always had to wear University of North Carolina boxer shorts under his Chicago Bulls uniform. ~ Atul Gawande

I grew up in North Carolina being told that the Bible approves slavery and segregation, that it was the will of God. ~ John Shelby Spong

And so I sit on the dunes in my carefully mismatched clothes, hour after hour, day after day, frozen in my looking back. 'Do not look behind you...lest you be swept away.' That is what scripture say. Only there is nowhere for me to look but back. No future. No redemption. Like Lot's wife, I am turned to salt, my tired eyes trained on the blue-gray horizon, where sea meets sky, where my yesterday's met my tomorrows, a ragtag eccentric, watching and waiting for something that never comes. ~ Barbara Davis

Dockets and trial records were inconsistently maintained. Attorneys were rarely involved on the side of blacks. Revenues from the neo-slavery poured the equivalent of tens of millions of dollars into the treasuries of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, Florida, Texas, North Carolina, and South Carolina - where more than 75 percent of the black population in the United States then lived. ~ Douglas A. Blackmon

The reality is our season prepared us so well that if we have to play Duke in the second game, we've done that three times this year. We've played North Carolina and Duke back-to-back that this would be the third time. We're just very prepared for this moment. ~ Shay Doron

Hitchcock's debut novel introduces 14-year-old Jessie Pearl, who endures more than her fair share of hardships, beginning with the death of her mother. Opening in 1922, the story follows the daily activities on the family's North Carolina tobacco farm. ...Hitchcock's story is gently and lovingly written, with elements drawn from her own family history. Its detailed honesty about the particular struggles of the period, especially for strong women (Maude, a no-nonsense midwife, is particularly memorable), is significant.
- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ~ Publishers Weekly

For a moment, I wondered how different my life would have been had they been my parents, but I shook the thought away. I knew my father had done the best he could, and I had no regrets about the way I'd turned out. Regrets about the journey, maybe, but not the destination. Because however it had happened, I'd somehow ended up eating shrimp in a dingy downtown shack with a girl that I already knew I'd never forget. ~ Nicholas Sparks

Stevie Wonder could make one of 23 shots. - On North Carolina missing 22 of its last 23 shots in losing to Georgetown in the NCAA tournament. ~ Charles Barkley

North Carolina offers a window into what politics without guardrails looks like - and a possible glimpse into America's future. When partisan rivals become enemies, political competition descends into warfare, and our institutions turn into weapons. The result is a system hovering constantly on the brink of crisis. ~ Steven Levitsky

While researching for his talk, Conners had noticed that North Carolina, his adopted home state, owned the dubious distinction of having the nation's highest rate of kids diagnosed with ADHD. ~ Alan Schwarz

I originally worked as an archaeologist in North Carolina, and when bones were found police would take them out to the bones lady at the university, and that was me. ~ Kathy Reichs

Becka might have been average in L.A., but average in L.A. is Queen of Mars in the visiting room of a federal penitentiary in North Carolina. ~ Kelly Link

No matter where you put me, I don't care if it is North Carolina, Florida, California, New York City; I'm going to be who I am. ~ Chris Paul

People have asked me about the 19th century and how I knew so much about it. And the fact is I really grew up in the 19th century, because North Carolina in the 1950s, the early years of my childhood, was exactly synchronous with North Carolina in the 1850s. And I used every scrap of knowledge that I had. ~ Allan Gurganus

Nestled... In the dappled Spring sunlight
peeking through oaks, maples, and Tulip poplar
is a country house with pale-yellow siding.
Across a corner of the weathered,
wooden-slatted front porch, a vine lazily
stretches to find a spot in the sun. ~ Christina M. Ward

The economic hardship of my family and of many others, a century ago, was caused by a monopoly, the American Tobacco Company, which had eliminated all competitors and thus was able to reduce as it pleased the prices it paid to farmers. The American Tobacco Company was the work of James B. Duke of Durham, North Carolina, and New York City, who, disregarding any other consideration, followed a capitalist logic to absolute control of his industry and, incidentally, of the economic fate of thousands of families such as my own. ~ Wendell Berry

As he walked out into the North Carolina sunshine, Lola's hand in his, a smile curved one corner of his lips.
Not so long ago, he'd stood on the burned-out bridge of the Dora Mae, thinking himself cursed with a beautiful underwear model and her sissy little dog. He'd always believed Lola Carlyle would be the death of him.
"We never did get around to watching Pride and Prejudice," she said, a teasing glint in her beautiful eyes.
Yeah, she would most definitely be the death of him, but what a way to go. ~ Rachel Gibson

My music came up from the soil of North Carolina, ~ Earl Scruggs

My favorite memories growing up in North Carolina were hunting and fishing with my father and brothers. There, I developed a deep appreciation for protecting land and waterways. There, I learned outdoorsmanship. ~ Louis Bacon

As Governor of North Carolina for two terms, I made improving education a top priority. ~ Michael F. Easley

My fellow Wilmington, North Carolina native Meadowlark Lemon is a true national treasure. I watched him play for the Harlem Globetrotters when I was growing up and his skill with the basketball and dedication to the game were an inspiration not only to me, but to kids all around the world. ~ Michael Jordan

To think, after all this time, after all the searching and all the waiting, after all the regret and the time she'd spent away, she came back to find that happiness was right where she's left it.
On a football field in Mullaby, North Carolina.
Waiting for her. ~ Sarah Addison Allen

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

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 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

Mountains. They stand at every view, like a mother offering a blanket in which to wrap everyday life and shelter it from useless. dreads. In june they are walls of white rhodendron blossom. In autumn the forests set themselves afflame with color. Even winter has its icy charms. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

North Carolina is home to some of the largest financial institutions in the country, and a vibrant network of community banks. We're a banking state, and we're proud of that distinction. But we also understand that responsible financial regulation protects consumers and businesses. ~ Kay Hagan

I grew up in North Carolina, and I grew up on wrestling. ~ Ken Jeong

I think you had the GOP down there in North Carolina reaching out to African-American voters and this guy coming on television and using the N-word and saying what Don Yelton said. ~ Aasif Mandvi

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

Yes. Kissing. Overrated."
"I could change your mind," Zach said, surprising the hell out of them both. Why would he take something as simple as this banter as a challenge? "I don't know that I want to, but I feel right sure I could."
"How arrogant. How typically male."
"I suppose." He shrugged and reached for the wine bottle. "More?"
She nodded, frowning now. "How do you know you could change my mind? It's been a long time since you ... well - "
"Over two years." The pain was there, an ache in his chest he imagined he would feel every time he thought of Hannah.
And he thought of her every day. Dreamed of her about as often. But lately, maybe only in the past week, he'd begun to realize that his life had not ended with his wife's.
He either had to die or start living again. ~ Tracy Sumner

The woman spoke with a heavy western North Carolina accent, which I used to discredit her authority. Here was a person for whom the word 'pen' had two syllables. He people undoubtedly drank from clay jugs and hollered for Paw when the vittles were ready
so who was she to advise me on anything? ~ David Sedaris

More helicopters hovered to the south, and a large troop carrier lifted off the ground a mile ahead. These weren't the same helicopters Rick had left behind in Tennessee. These were new ones from North Carolina. They must have had a plan, but Rick wasn't in any hurry to run to his doom. He slowed down to seventy miles per hour and looked at Renee.
"I love you, too," he said.
Renee's heart lurched into her throat. The reserved look on his face was something she wasn't used to seeing. "Do you think this is it?"
"I don't know." He looked again at the fuel gauge.
She put her hand over the gauge, covering it from his view. "Do you remember what you told me once?"
Rick smiled. "That, sometimes, it's best not to know."
"Just don't quit on me. Don't make this a worthless gesture." Renee forced him to look at her.
Rick feared running out of fuel in the middle of these mountains. He feared the fury of the Firebird's losing power, rolling to a stop, becoming helpless, and giving all these patrolmen a chance to catch up to them and gun them down like Bonnie and Clyde. Surely, they would use lethal force and nothing else.
But as long as that engine ran and Rick was behind the wheel, they had a chance to live. And every second of life mattered.
"OK, just hang on," he said, meeting her gaze. He reached over and kissed her gently.
Renee relished the kiss, closing her eyes and then opening them wide to take in the mountains. Did it h ~ Rich Hoffman

When we left, we were told it would be another month before the winner was announced. Then I felt really discouraged. Friends were telling me that my injuries and my fitness level guaranteed me the cover. I felt the opposite. I didn't feel I was as fit as the others and I felt like the war was too controversial a topic for the magazine to want to feature a wounded veteran.
I had completely talked myself out of even the slightest possibility of winning by the time I was back on a plane to New York a month later to find out the results. My family didn't believe that I didn't know already. They thought I'd been told and kept asking me about it. But I really didn't know. The winner was being announced live on NBC's Today show. I had made my peace with not winning and Jamie and I were just excited to go to New York and be on Today. We had a layover in Charlotte, North Carolina, and when we landed there I had a voice mail from my friend Billy. His message: "I thought we had to wait to see who won? It's already out!"
I clicked onto my Facebook app and saw that Billy had posted a picture of him and some of his buddies at a truck stop in Kentucky posing with a Men's Health magazine--and I was on the cover! I was shocked. But even then I was convinced this wasn't real. Maybe the editors had decided to give the cover to all three of us and we each had a different region of the country. It felt incredible to see myself on the cover of that magazine but I just wasn't convinced I ~ Noah Galloway

'One Tree Hill' really had an impact on my life. It was the first time I left my house and my family in New York and went to a small town in North Carolina. It was the most incredible experience for me. ~ Daniella Alonso

Districts to tilt the playing field in their favor. Their success was unprecedented. In states like Ohio, Michigan and North Carolina, Republicans were able to shape congressional ~ Anonymous

It will be about which candidate, which of the two candidates remaining, is best suited to make a positive difference in the lives of North Carolina families, and I submit to each of you tonight that I am that candidate and Elizabeth Dole is not. ~ Erskine Bowles

I started singing when I was about 3 and dancing soon after. Mom just started looking for outlets where I could perform and availed herself of any opportunity she could in the mountains of North Carolina in the '70s. ~ Bellamy Young

In binghamton, new york, winter meant snow, and though I was young when we left, I was able to recall great heaps of it, and use that memory as evidence that North Carolina was, at best, a third-rate institution. What little snow there was would usually melt an hour or two after hitting the ground, and there you'd be in your windbreaker and unconvincing mittens, forming a lumpy figure made mostly of mud. Snow Negroes, we called them. The ~ David Sedaris

I've grown more comfortable working with the dead. With parts of them, really. A few teeth, a vertebra, a piece of carpet that lay underneath a body for awhile. One of my German shepherd's standard training materials is dirt harvested from sites where decomposing bodies rested. Crack open a Mason jar filled with that dirt, and all I smell is North Carolina woods - musky darkness with a hint of mildewed alder leaves. Solo smells the departed. ~ Cat Warren

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

I randomly went to a casting session in my hometown in North Carolina, and the casting director introduced me to my manager. I really lucked into it! ~ Maddie Hasson

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

We must remember that North Carolina is more than a collection of regions and people. We are one state, one people, one family, bound by a common concern for each other. ~ Michael F. Easley

Shaking hands with the Queen of England was a long way from being forced to sit in the colored section of the bus going into downtown Wilmington, North Carolina. ~ Althea Gibson

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

I was from North Carolina, so as a youngster all of my mind games about golf were always, 'If I make this I win The Masters, if I hole this par putt I win The Masters.' So it was a great thrill to play there. ~ Raymond Floyd

Throughout my many years of service to the people of North Carolina, I have always tried to treat people from all viewpoints with respect. ~ Bob Etheridge

Being about to land on the soil of North Carolina, the general commanding desires his soldiers to remember that they are here to support the Constitution and the laws, to put down rebellion, and to protect the persons and property of the loyal and peaceable citizens of the State. ~ Ambrose Burnside

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

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