Southern Fiction Southernlit Quotes

And when the clouds come, I sink; and when the skies dawn, I rise. ~ Toni Orrill

So the women would not forgive. Their passion remained intact, carefully guarded and nurtured by the bitter knowledge of all they had lost, of all that had been stolen from them. For generations they vilified the Yankee race so the thief would have a face, a name, a mysterious country into which he had withdrawn and from which he might venture again. They banded together into a militant freemasonry of remembering, and from that citadel held out against any suggestion that what they had suffered and lost might have been in vain. They created the Lost Cause, and consecrated that proud fiction with the blood of real men. To the Lost Cause they dedicated their own blood, their own lives, and to it they offered books, monographs, songs, acres and acres of bad poetry. They fashioned out of grief and loss an imaginary world in which every Southern church had stabled Yankee horses, every nick in Mama's furniture was made by Yankee spurs, every torn painting was the victim of Yankee sabre - a world in which paint did not stick to plaster walls because of the precious salt once hidden there; in which bloodstains could not be washed away and every other house had been a hospital. ~ Howard Bahr

There is an old saying that every story, even your own, is either happy or sad depending on where you stop telling it. I believe I'll stop telling this one here. ~ Wiley Cash

I'd always thought of him as one of those fat catfish swimming in the Catawba River, trudging along the bottom with his belly in the mud, his mouth open, feeding on whatever he came across. ~ Wiley Cash

Nothing helps your partner keep his mind on Jesus more than having a sign of His love tanned on your primary erogenous zones. ~ Scott B. Pruden

I started out hoping to remind people at some point in the novel that we should be loving and kind. But then the theme usurped my life, spilling over into my novels until love was no longer a small voice, but now my purpose as a writer. ~ Patricia Hickman

Life can surprise you. You want something with every ounce of blood that flows in your veins, and then one day it's yours. Right there before you. Everything. You break out in a cold sweat with the undeniable realization that what you really want is home. Sometimes finding home is a long time coming. A long journey. ~ Brenda Sutton Rose

At 2:00 sharp on the afternoon of his internment, with his body resting in a casket in the front room of his home, the pallbearers--all bridge players--stuck a deck of cards in Mr. Hampton's cold hands, shut the lid over his head, and played bridge. ~ Brenda Sutton Rose

Writing is an act of faith. One must believe and see people who are invisible to others and be faithful to tell half formed stories. It's like being on the trail of an apparition who's repeatedly just out of reach.
K. Youngblood ~ Katherine Imogene Youngblood

Georgia Author Brenda Sutton Rose captures some of the conflicted and captivating characters of a rapidly changing South. ~ Janisse Ray

Well, honey, it is the south. These debutantes know how to verbally kick anyone's ass. They learned it from their mamas in the womb. ~ Magan Vernon

I reckon it's true what they say that good begets good and bad begets bad. The evil men do lives on after them, but what good they done gets buried with their bones. ~ Lisa Kaye Presley

Although I wasn't there to bear witness, I imagine Lot's wife scanned the masses for her children. Perhaps she sought out the curves of their mouths and the shapes of their faces, trying to memorize her children, grown now. She looked back as I and any strong, loving mother would have done. ~ Brenda Sutton Rose

Easy for you to say," Polly said. "You've lived here all your life and stayed under the radar. No one points at you."
"Sometimes small children point at my butt," Aunt Rhea said. "But that's just on account of all the fried chicken. ~ Kathy Hepinstall

Christians are the salt of the earth ... Nothing grows where they've been. ~ Donald Hays

He ascended the mountain in darkness, no lamplight, a world black and silver and blue. The moon lay scattered through the woods in blades, glowing palely, the wind rising now and again to moan through the trees. The trail scrawled ever upward, toward the looming darkness of the mountain's peak. Above it all the sea of night, the strange ornamentation of stars. ~ Taylor Brown

In favor of southern womanhood as much as anybody, but not for preserving polite fiction at the expense of human life. ~ Harper Lee

Dogwood Blues by Brenda Sutton Rose is a masterful work of classic small-town fiction. ~ Janice Daugharty

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

She turned her painted blue eyes toward the assistant and said something in French before she left. ~ Nancy B. Brewer

I write books with words. Numerous words. Words that stomp and stare and crush and collapse and boogie and bang and scream and laugh and manipulate. My books are a storehouse of words that form paragraphs that form chapters that form stories that form thoughts that live on long after you've read the last word. ~ Brenda Sutton Rose

The confessional writer will treat her story like a wailing wall. She kneels, and her story spills out, messy, improper. It isn't a protest or even graffiti, but her story is an offering of things that she overlooked or notices that others have overlooked. She is in danger of exposure but she remembers when she lived in hiding and that was worse. She cannot turn back now because this is how life has spun out of her, part vexing passage and part prayer. ~ Patricia Hickman

Humans need each other for equilibrium and support. But writers must pull aside to take a quiet walk alone, not just for the sake of serenity but to hear the Voice inside. That is how the storyteller connects with with others--listen, write, share. ~ Patricia Hickman

The woods are full of regional writers, and it is the great horror of every serious Southern writer that he will become one of them. ~ Flannery O'Connor

There were thousands of children just like her in the world. She had walked through the fire and come out the other side scorched, but not consumed by it. ~ J.L. Murphey

Raw Living: Picking blackberries, beneath late afternoon sun; a sunset reminiscent of watermelon sangria, as the scent of honeysuckle accosts me and the ducks waddle into the lake. Thanking Mama Nature for her abundance. Loving this candied-sweet southern life. ~ Brandi L. Bates

Maybe the example of Southern fiction writing has been so powerful that Southern poets have sort of keyed themselves to that. ~ Robert Morgan

Them dandelion wishes float and float for miles hoping they might get lucky and find a place to root. ~ Randolph Randy Camp

Are you aware that Jesus Christ can spell? I get so tired of you spelling every slang and cuss word that crosses your mind, as though you are pulling one over on the Lord. ~ Brenda Sutton Rose

Because of sorrow, my awareness of life's pulse is strongly detectable. It is syncopation while I journey, a lap of ocean in the eyes of every person I meet. This awareness informs the flesh of my stories. Grief has been an odd companion, at first a terror, but now I am all the better having accepted it for its intrinsic worth. ~ Patricia Hickman

We don't always get what we want. And sometimes, when we do, it's not worth the price. ~ Stephanie Lawton

Ruby's was where I'd long picked up delicious bits and pieces of small-town troubles, and of course, Ramona Jean was my very best source. ~ Steven Norton

We stared at each other in silence until she looked away. I won. I always won, because I had my daddy's eyes and she could only stare for so long, without looking away. I had my own ways of getting to Baby-Sweet. ~ Jaguar Jonez