Southern Novels Quotes

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

There's a sense in all my novels that nothing is certain. ~ William Boyd

Lord, but did he grow up nice. ~ Kelly Moran

In me was shaping a yearning for a kind of consciousness, a mode of being that the way of life about me had said could not be, must not be, and upon which the penalty of death had been placed. Somewhere in the dead of the southern night my life had switched onto the wrong track and without my knowing it, the locomotive of my heart was rushing down a dangerously steep slope, heading for a collision, heedless of the warning red lights that blinked all about me, the sirens and the ells and the screams that filled the air. ~ Richard Wright

He was a Super Politician, defender of untruths, injustice and the American power-play. ~ B.V. Lawson

Novels should be judged rigorously. Either a book works or it doesn't. The fact that something is true in the real world should not lend authority to it in fiction. ~ Akhil Sharma

Terry Pratchett lives in England, an island off the coast of France, where he spends his time writing Discworld novels in accordance with the Very String Anthropic Principle, which holds that the entire Purpose of the Universe is to make possible a being that will live in England, an island off the coast of France, and spend his time writing Discworld novels. Which is exactly what he does. Which proves the whole business true. Any questions? ~ Terry Pratchett

Coming from the South and growing up in L.A. where it was so segregated - worse than the South in many ways - all the people in my neighborhood were from the South. So you had that Southern cultured environment. The church was very important. And there were these folk ways that were there. I was always fascinated by these Southern stories, people would share these mystified experiences of the South. I wanted to talk about folklore. ~ Charles Burnett

Lost Cactus is simply an urban myth. ~ John Hopkins

I like the South because it is so much warmer on the sidelines than it is up North. ~ Tom Landry

Cinema is a mixed form. L'Avventura has characters, it has social context, and these things are not trivial. Its plot is the disappearance of a disappearance. Possibly the most frightening plot imaginable. Forgetting the dead, whom all of history tells us we must remember. But what makes movies themselves, rather than novels or plays, is something else. What is it if not the film medium itself? The purity of the visual, which lies in the silence of the stilled image. The freeze frame. The deeply, deeply silent image. Like death. The image in itself in its silent purity reaches
it reaches!
for the purity of death. ~ Frank Lentricchia

Authors often say that their novels are like their children, and you want your novel, just like your children, to reflect well on you. When it goes out into the world, you hope that it will make you proud. But like a parent, an author must learn that her novel has needs of its own, and they are not the same as the author's.
Yes, you want your son's behavior toward women to reflect a loving relationship with his mother. However, if a woman is compelled to think about that relationship whenever they're in bed together, something has gone very very wrong. ~ Howard Mittelmark

Children are often like hostages under the care of authority, with spankings and groundings nudging them like guns pointed at their skulls, threatening to shoot if the wrong words are uttered. ~ Maggie Young

Outside I hopped into our vehicle, the taint of vampiric magic clinging to me like greasy smoke.
"I feel soiled."
"Like walking into a room after a day of work, falling into bed, and realizing the sheets are covered in cold K-Y jelly," Raphael said.
I just stared at him.
"With a funky smell," he added.
My Order conditioning failed me. "Ew."
Raphael grinned.
"I‟m not even going to ask if that‟s happened to you."
I started the vehicle. "Has that happened to you?"
"Yes."
Ew. "Where?"
"In the bouda house. I was really tired and you‟ve seen that place: everything smells like sex . . ."
"I don‟t want to know." I peeled out of the parking lot.
"So where are we going?"
"To Spider Lynn‟s house. We‟re going to dig through her trash, and if that doesn‟t work, we‟ll do some breaking and entering."
Raphael frowned. "Do you know where she lives?"
"Yes. I memorized the addresses of all the Masters of the Dead in the city. I have a lot of time on my hands."
He squinted at me, looking remarkably like a gentleman pirate from my favorite romance
novels. "What else do you store in your head?"
"This and that. I remember the first thing you ever said to me. You know, when you carried me from the cart into the tub so your mother could fix me."
"I imagine it was something very romantic," he said. "Something along the lines of „I‟ve got you‟ or „I won‟t let you die.‟
"I was ble ~ Ilona Andrews

I think sex is a very minor part of most romance novels. ~ Lauren Willig

It's confirmed now, Sharon said to herself with a huge smile. She couldn't wait for their affair to begin. ~ Lynda Colucci

Funboy: Pal, something is seriously wrong with you.
The Crow: Atrocity has that effect on me. ~ James O'Barr

I love you even still...even still that you are so damaged that you do not recognise love when it is right in your face. I know you want love but you don't understand that love doesn't alays have to be pain. ~ Ella December

Ask me about my childhood, and I will tell you to walk to the edge of the woods with a choir of crickets chirping from every direction, a hot, humid breeze brushing through your hair, your feet, bare and callused. Stand there, unmoving, and watch the dance of ten thousand fireflies blinking on and off in the darkness. Inhale the scent of cured tobacco, freshly plowed southern soil, burning leaves, and honeysuckle. Swallow the taste of blackberries, picked straight from the bushes, and lick your teeth, the after-taste still sweet in your mouth. Now, stretch out on the ground and relax all your muscles. Watch nature's festival of flickering lights. ~ Brenda Sutton Rose

I don't think Ireland has ever had a genius for the novel. Of course, there were plenty of Irish novels, but I don't think that was ever the natural means of expression for the Irish. ~ Lady Gregory

My grandmother would sing in the choir, while my dad - while he was in college - sang and recorded with a quartet. So yeah, it was definitely my dad's Southern side that impacted on me musically. ~ Keri Hilson

I miss my old paycheck and the sense of pride, power, and worth that it gave me. I make a lot less money now. A lot less. But what I've lost in dollars, I've gained in time. I have time in the afternoons now to help Charlie and Lucy with their homework, to play Wii with them, to watch Charlie's soccer games, to take a nap with Linus. I can't wait to spend afternoons snowboarding. I have time to paint a portrait of Lucy (my only child who will sit still long enough) or the apples we picked at the local orchard. I have time to read novels, to meditate, to watch the deer walk across the backyard, to have dinner every night with my family. Less money, more time. So far, the trade-off has been worth every penny. ~ Lisa Genova

Because the South can be a dangerous place, especially for those who don't understand it. ~ Shannon Celebi

Farmville is still the quiet community where I spent long summer afternoons floating in my parents' pool. On the surface, it is a perfectly charming Southern place to grow up, a seemingly wholesome town to raise a family.

That is, until you dive in. ~ Kristen Green

My hope is that my novels reflect the reality of a world where good and evil exist, imperfect people make mistakes, but a perfect Heavenly Father offers forgiveness and second chances. ~ Julie Klassen

You came out of prison incredibly buff or with an addiction to paperback novels. ~ Heather O'Neill

I've read way too much on the overused/misunderstood buzzwords "Show, don't tell!" that I'm convinced all novels should now be picture books ~ Michael Kroft

Well - I was brought up as a Southern Baptist. ~ Pat Robertson

Love hurts.

Think back over romance novels you've loved or the genre-defining books that drive our industry. The most unforgettable stories and characters spring from crushing opposition. What we remember about romance novels is the darkness that drives them. Three hundred pages of folks being happy together makes for a hefty sleeping pill, but three hundred pages of a couple finding a way to be happy in the face of impossible odds makes our hearts soar. In darkness, we are all alone.

So don't just make love, make anguish for your characters. As you structure a story, don't satisfy your hero's desires, thwart them. Make sure your solutions create new problems. Nurture your characters doubts and despair. Make them earn the happy ending they want, even better…make them deserve it. Delay and disappointment charge situations and validate character growth. Misery accompanies love. It's no accident that many of the stories we think of as timeless romances in Western Literature are fiercely tragic: Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, Cupid and Psyche… the pain in them drags us back again and again, hoping that this time we'll find a way out of the dark.

Only if you let your characters get lost will we get lost in them. And that, more than anything else, is what romance can and should do for its protagonists and its readers: lead us through the labyrinth, skirt the monstrous despair roaming its halls, and find our way into daylight. ~ Damon Suede

Darius began to walk away, but as if he thought better of it, turned back to face Wharick. He stared into the Gwardian's eyes for a moment and then spoke quietly. If ever a blade comes that close to my neck brother, the only debt you owe me is to make sure it connects. ~ Madison Thorne Grey

When I began writing, I did not realize that the Holocaust would become a critical part of the story. During and after WWII, neither the survivors of the Holocaust nor the combat solders were diagnosed or treated for what is now known as PTSD (Post-traumatic Stress Disorder). Many of the characters in this book were victims of this now well-known disorder. ~ Helene Uhlfelder

It doesn't take five novels to become a great writer ... it takes one novel rewritten five different times. ~ B. Chancellor Burgweger

I have no desire to write historical anything or futuristic anything - I want to find a way to get at the essence of what it's like to be alive now. The reason why great novels from centuries ago are still great is because that's what they were doing; it's like a message from another culture. ~ Jonathan Dee

From time to time the continent shifts, and everything that isn't fastened down slides into Southern California. ~ Frank Lloyd Wright

The Northern onslaught upon slavery was no more than a piece of specious humbug designed to conceal its desire for economic control of the Southern states. ~ Charles Dickens

Pushing through some viney branches, she comes into a clearing andfinds a sight that makes her hush
and not just her voice but every part of her, like feeling silence in her deep guts ...
It's something she can feel in the back of her throat, her dislike of the scene
as though what she's looking upon is unholy, the conjunction of chaos and order in a forced fit where everything is stretched and bent in the wrong way like those baby legs. ~ Alden Bell

It's because of the way you are. It's why you're happy reading novels. You're only comfortable with a piece of the world that you can hold in your hand. ~ Lan Samantha Chang

No, she laughed." How on earth could that be done? If you try to laugh and say 'No' at the same time, it sounds like neighing - yet people are perpetually doing it in novels. If they did it in real life they would be locked up. ~ Hilaire Belloc

I trust you, Collin, with my life and my heart. If I didn't, I wouldn't be here right now. We may not be joined together, by law, by God, but we are, in my heart. ~ Nicole Gulla

My activism is a result of my love. So whether it's trying to preserve the wilderness in Southern Utah or writing about an erotics of place, it is that same impulse - to try to make sense of the world, to try to preserve something that is beautiful, to ask the tough questions, the push the boundaries of what is acceptable. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

Journalism is a team sport. Writing novels is golf: it's you and the ball. ~ Pete Hamill

I've been told by people who write historical novels that you just sort of write the emotional truth first, the story at the core, and then you go back and research it at the end. ~ Jami Attenberg

Memory, my dear Cecily, is the diary that we all carry about with us. Yes, but it usually chronicles the things that have never happened, and couldn't possibly have happened. I believe that Memory is responsible for nearly all the three-volume novels that Mudie sends us. ~ Oscar Wilde

...she knew from school that that sort of literature was boring: Gorky was correct but somehow ponderous; Mayakovsky was very correct but somehow awkward; Saltykov-Shchedrin was progressive, but you could die yawning if you tried to read him through; Turgenev was limited to his nobleman's ideals; Goncharov was associated with the beginnings of Russian capitalism; Lev Tolstoi came to favor patriarchal peasantry - and their teacher did not recommend reading Tolstoi's novels because they were very long and only confused the clear critical essays written about him. And then they reviewed a batch of writers totally unknown to anyone: Dostoyevsky, Stepnyak-Kravchinsky, and Sukhovo-Kobylin. It was true that one did not even have to remember the titles of their works. In all this long procession, only Pushkin shone like a sun. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I look out past the corn and the wheat and wonder how many sets of bones are buried, unspoken, keeping their stories to themselves in the dirt. I wonder if they know the sky is bright blue today and the air smells sweet. I wonder if they still listen in. ~ Andrea Portes

We can look forward to the day when the free flow of trade, from the southern reaches of Tierra del Fuego to the northern outposts of the Arctic Circle, unites the people of the Western Hemisphere in a bond of mutually beneficial exchange, when all borders become what the U.S.-Canadian border so long has been: a meeting place, rather than a dividing line. ~ Ronald Reagan

I majored in English in college, so I read the classic dystopian novels like '1984' and 'Brave New World.' ~ Lois Lowry

Finally, while I don't want to disparage the traditional novel--I still prefer Dickens's Great Expectations over Kathy Acker's Great Expectations, though I'll take Lauren Fairbanks's Sister Carrie over Dreiser's any day--there's a whole other world of novels out there most people never even hear of, much less read. Let's go see. ~ Steven Moore

Samantha, you interest me. I'd like to take you out. Why are you fighting me? ~ Elizabeth Brown