Southern Authors Quotes

At first I read mostly books by Southern authors - black and white - because almost all the people I knew were born and raised in the South, starting with my mother. I remember I got a lot of Erskine Caldwell. ~ Edward P. Jones

Magic of Southern expressions? Similes and metaphorical allusions. They are the yellow highlighter of conversation. ~ Tim Heaton

To living in the South: If you've never had a Porterhouse, everything tastes like baloney. ~ Tim Heaton

If I weren't so screwed up, I would've sold my soul a long time ago for a handsome man who made me feel pretty or who could at least treat me to a Millionaire's Martini. Instead I lingered over a watered down Sparkling Apple and felt sorry about what I was about to do to the blue-eyed bartender standing in front of me. Although I shouldn't, after all, I am a bail recovery agent. It's my job to get my skip, no matter the cost.If I weren't so screwed up, I would've sold my soul a long time ago for a handsome man who made me feel pretty or who could at least treat me to a Millionaire's Martini. Instead I lingered over a watered down Sparkling Apple and felt sorry about what I was about to do to the blue-eyed bartender standing in front of me. Although I shouldn't, after all, I am a bail recovery agent. It's my job to get my skip, no matter the cost. Yet, I had been wondering lately. What was this job costing me? Yet, I had been wondering lately. What was this job costing me? ~ Miranda Parker

There are two things I am afraid of. One is dying young. The other is Johnny Monroe. ~ Susan Gabriel

Potential enemies make the best friends and lovers. Many a blessed union begins in adversity. ~ Randy Thornhorn

What is the fire of inspiration that resides within, if not something to follow along a path? ~ Claire Fullerton

F***ing triffids. ~ Scott B. Pruden

The window of her sadness was so vast that it almost opened a path to her soul. ~ Ondjaki

Autobiographical writing acts as a timeless testament to each person's epic record of adventure, heartache, road to perdition, and achievement of a spiritual life devoid of the consternation, trepidation, foreboding fear, and inconsolably hankering for what is unattainable for humankind. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Authors are sometimes like tomcats: They distrust all the other toms but they are kind to kittens. ~ Malcolm Cowley

I think this spring as the mosquito populations start to increase, we should be especially cautious about locations where we've had locally-transmitted Dengue virus. The same mosquito species that transmits Zika also transmits Dengue. It's confined primarily to Florida, South Florida, along the Gulf states and Southern Texas with a few small populations in Arizona and California. ~ Laura Harrington

Charles and I are from Augusta, Ga. - so we come from James Brown territory, soul music and Motown. And Charles has always had a lot of Southern rock in there as well. ~ Dave Haywood

It isn't my teaching credentials that qualify me to teach my child. It is my God who qualifies me. ~ Tamara L. Chilver

At the southern tip of the continent, a rich reward is in the making, an invaluable gift is in the preparation, for those who suffered in the name of all humanity when they sacrificed everything - for liberty, peace, human dignity and human fulfillment.
The value of our shared reward will and must be measured by the joyful peace which will triumph, because of the common humanity that bonds both black and white into one human race, will have said to each one of us that we shall all live like the children of paradise. ~ Nelson Mandela

Then I went off to Southern Methodist University in Dallas. They had a really wonderful theatre department. ~ Beth Henley

all texts are at least potentially environmental (and therefore susceptible to ecocriticism or ecologically informed reading) in the sense that all text are literally or imaginatively situated in a place, and in the sense that their authors, consciously or not, inscribe within them a certain relation to their place. ~ Robert Kern

Education does not define you as a "HUMAN BEING" your actions does. ~ Henry Johnson Jr

A decoy," said the Darkling, coming up beside me. "We'll take the southern trails. It's what we should have done in the first place."
"So you do make mistakes," I said without thinking.
He paused in the act of pulling on his gloves, and I pressed my lips together nervously. "I didn't mean - "
"Of course I make mistakes," he said. His mouth curved into a half smile. "Just not often. ~ Leigh Bardugo

American musicians, instead of investigating ragtime, attempt to ignore it, or dismiss it with a contemptuous word. But that has always been the course of scholasticism in every branch of art. Whatever new thing the 'people' like is poohpoohed; whatever is 'popular' is spoken of as not worth the while. The fact is, nothing great or enduring, especially in music, has ever sprung full-fledged and unprecedented from the brain of any master; the best that he gives to the world he gathers from the hearts of the people, and runs it through the alembic of his genius. ~ James Weldon Johnson

There are a million ways to create. It's not always typing words, painting pictures, or acting in a play. And you don't get to decide which is correct. ~ Brandt Legg

My career still strikes me as miraculous. That a boy raised on Marine bases in the South, taught by Roman Catholic nuns in backwater Southern towns that loathed Catholics, and completed his education with an immersion into The Citadel - the whole story sounds fabricated, impossible even to me. Maybe especially to me. ~ Pat Conroy

I'm not perfect... but I am perfectly fine with being myself. ~ Kayambila Mpulamasaka

Well, they're Southern people, and if they know you are working at home they think nothing of walking right in for coffee. But they wouldn't dream of interrupting you at golf. ~ Harper Lee

We have come to this strange cultural moment where food is both tool and weapon. I am grateful for it. My enter life I knew, and many others knew, that our daily bread was itself a kind of scripture of our origins, a taste track of our lives. It is a lie that food is just fuel. It has always had layers of meaning, and humans for the most part despise meaningless food. In America, and especially the American South, 'race' endures alongside the sociopolitics of food; it is not a stretch to say that that race is both on and at the Southern table. But if it is on the table alone we have learned nothing; we continue to reduce each other to stereotypical essences.

It is not enough to be white at the table. It is not enough to be black at the table. It is not enough to be 'just human' at the table. Complexity must come with us - in fact it will invite itself to the feast whether we like it or not. We can choose to acknowledge the presence of history, economics, class, cultural forces, and the idea of race in shaping our experience, or we can languish in circuitous arguments over what it all means and get nowhere. I present my journey to you as a means out of the whirlwind, an attempt to tell as much truth as time will allow. ~ Michael W. Twitty

Good marketing is reminding your readers regularly about all the valuable things you want to give them out of your own experience, including your book, in a new and genuine way. ~ Bethany Atazadeh

In my view, the ebook world for both established and new authors is a terrific new and exciting format. It is a format that will bring forth many new writers to publishing. ~ Robert Gottlieb

With a perversity of judgement, which must be attributed to his not having by Nature a very strong head, the Graces, the Spirit, the Sagacity, and the Perseverance, of the Villain of the Story outweighed all his absurdities and all his Atrocities with Sir Edward. With him, such Conduct was Genius, Fire and Feeling. It interested and inflamed him; and he was always more anxious for its Success and mourned over its Discomfitures with more Tenderness than could ever have been contemplated by the Authors. ~ Jane Austen

When I was in high school, my uncle, who went to the races quite a bit, got me interested. Then when I went to college at Southern Illinois University, just a few hours from Louisville, we used to go to the Kentucky Derby, and I got to see Secretariat and Riva Ridge win. ~ Kenny Troutt

It takes thirty-three days to write a book
only thirty-three days. remember, writers lie for a living. ~ Darynda Jones

Though she knew even less about radios than about Southern Californians, there were to both outward patterns a hieroglyphic sense of concealed meaning, of an intent to communicate. ~ Thomas Pynchon

I'll never forget the magic of our Saturday nights. Special moments carved in my mind by you the sculptor of my love. Let's dance the night away. Who needs music, when your heart already sings to me. ~ ~ Fidelis O Mkparu (2016), Author Of ‘Love’s Affliction’

The children start school now in August. They say it has to do with air-conditioning, but I know sadism when I see it. ~ Rick Bragg

Further south, there are some airports, but none our size. Our airport is the gateway to the southern Kansas City. ~ James Green

Parents naturally want their children to excel in every area of academics and extra-curricular activities, but the reality is- God made each child differently for His purpose. He never intended for our children to excel in everything. ~ Tamara L. Chilver

A chorus of tough southern belles whispered, You need a loyal husband around here. Loyal to you, loyal to your family, loyal to your land.
I added, Good in bed, smart, and romantic. Politically, socially, and religiously compatible. And he had to want children. ~ Deborah Smith

Aschenbach is not only a projection of Mann in the obvious ways - same daily routines, author of the works Mann had planned - nor even in sharing his author's aspirations, doubts, and sexual identity. His watchword, "Durchhalten!" [persevere, keep going] could be Mann's own. ~ Philip Kitcher

Mamaw's spirit lingers there, her high-bubbled laugh
carrying on like a song, her quiet dignity still holding
together the air that holds up this house. ~ Christina M. Ward

She was always saying things like that but I let her be my best friend anyway. ~ Ellen Gilchrist

Authors must not, like Chinese soldiers, expect to win victories by turning somersets in the air. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

There was nothing holy or particular in my skin; I was black because of history and heritage. There was no nobility in falling, in being bound, in living oppressed, and there was no inherent meaning in black blood. Black blood wasn't black; black skin wasn't even black. And now I looked back on my need for a trophy case, on the desire to live by the standards of Saul Bellow, and I felt that this need was not an escape but fear again - fear that "they," the alleged authors and heirs of the universe, were right. And this fear ran so deep that we accepted their standards of civilization and humanity. ~ Ta-Nehisi Coates

No man's thoughts are new, but the style of their expression is the never-failing novelty which cheers and refreshes men. If we were to answer the question, whether the mass of men, as we know them, talk as the standard authors and reviewers write, or rather as this man writes, we should say that he alone begins to write their language at all. ~ Henry David Thoreau

But it is rather derogatory that your dwelling-place should be only a neighborhood to a great city,
to live on an inclined plane.I do not like their cities and forts, with their morning and evening guns, and sails flapping in one's eye. I want a whole continent to breathe in, and a good deal of solitude and silence, such as all Wall Street cannot buy,
nor Broadway with its wooden pavement. I must live along the beach, on the southern shore, which looks directly out to sea,
and see what that great parade of water means, that dashes and roars, and has not yet wet me, as long as I have lived. ~ Henry David Thoreau

There are two kinds of authors - subjective and objective. Introverts are more inward looking. ~ Ruskin Bond

Personal essays are often nostalgia-fused narratives written by authors with authenticity fetishes. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

I have my favorite authors, but in reality, my mother did. Though she's never written a book, she paved the way for me to. ~ Franny Armstrong

Almost all novels are improved by cutting from the top. On their first pages, authors parade those favourite effects which disgust the impartial reader. ~ James Buchan

There are a number of things that set Southern artists apart from anyone else. Their obsession with place and their obsession with family. ~ Sally Mann

Without writers, stories would not be written,
Without actors, stories could not be brought to life. ~ Angie-Marie Delsante

I might be tempted to socialize more if the conversations taking place around me were half as interesting as the dialogue going on inside my head. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

One of the least impressive liberties is the liberty to starve. This particular liberty is freely accorded to authors. ~ Arnold Goodman, Baron Goodman

Every lover of books has authors whom he reads over and over again, whom he cares for as persons and not as sources of information, who are more to him, possibly, than any person he sees. He continually returns to the cherished companion and feeds eagerly upon his thought. It is because there is something in the book which he needs, which awakens and directs trains of thought that lead him where he likes to be led. ~ Charles Horton Cooley

This picture of a hot early stage of the universe was first put forward by the scientist George Gamow in a famous paper written in 1948 with a student of his, Ralph Alpher. Gamow had quite a sense of humor - he persuaded the nuclear scientist Hans Bethe to add his name to the paper to make the list of authors "Alpher, Bethe, Gamow, ~ Stephen Hawking

It wasn't that she believed in voodoo, precisely - but she believed in the people who believed in voodoo - and that was scary enough.

-Coralee Ayers ~ Caitlin Rush

I started out in New York, and New York has a way of countering a Southern accent, naturally; when I moved to Los Angeles for a job, and I just stayed, the dialect out here doesn't really counter, and my Southern started coming back. ~ Kim Dickens

During the 19th century, Britain fought two wars in unsuccessful attempts to subjugate the Afghans. When Britain finally drew a border between India and Afghanistan in 1893, Pashtun tribes in southern Afghanistan were cut off from related tribes across the border in what was then India and is now Pakistan. ~ Stephen Kinzer

Tales of ordinary characters would appeal to a larger class , but I have no wish to make such an appeal . The opinions of the masses are of no interest to me , for praise can truly gratify only when it comes from a mind sharing the author's perspective . There are probably seven persons in all , who really like my work and they are enough . I should write even if I were the only patient reader , for my aim is merely self expression . I could not write about ' ordinary people ' because I am not in the least interested in them . Without interest there can be no art . Man's relations to man do not captivate my fancy . It is man's relations to the cosmos - to the unknown - which alone arouses in me the spark of creative imagination . ~ H.P. Lovecraft