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“In the South, history clings to you like a wet blanket. Outside your door the past awaits in Indian mounds, plantation ruins, heaving sidewalks and homestead graveyards; each slowly reclaimed by the kudzu of time.”
― Tim Heaton, Don't Be Ugly: The G-Rated companion book to “Momma n ‘Em Said."

“The South is a strange place, one that can't be fit inside a movie, a place that dares you to simplify it, like a prime number, like a Bible story, like my father.”
― Harrison Scott Key, The World's Largest Man

“At the railroad station he noted that he still had thirty minutes. He quickly recalled that in a cafe on the Calle Brazil (a few dozen feet from Yrigoyen's house) there was an enormous cat which allowed itself to be caressed as if it were a disdainful divinity. He entered the cafe. There was the cat, asleep. He ordered a cup of coffee, slowly stirred the sugar, sipped it (this pleasure had been denied him in the clinic), and thought, as he smoothed the cat's black coat, that this contact was an illusion and that the two beings, man and cat, were as good as separated by a glass, for man lives in time, in succession, while the magical animal lives in the present, in the eternity of the instant.”
― Jorge Luis Borges, Collected Fictions

“I have myself known two southern wives who exhorted their husbands to free those slaves towards whom they stood in a "parental relation;" and their request was granted. These husbands blushed before the superior nobleness of their wives' natures. Though they had only counseled them to do that which was their duty to do, it commanded their respect, and rendered their conduct more exemplary. Concealment was at an end, and confidence took the place of distrust.”
― Harriet A. Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself

“I saw goats. A party can’t be all bad when you have goats,â€� Lucy said.”
― Mary Jane Hathaway, Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread

“I am consoled only to see that I was not mistaken: Chicago is just as I remembered it. I was here twenty five years ago. My father brought me and Scott up to see the Century of Progress and once later to the World Series. Not a single thing do I remember from the first trip but this: the sense of the place, the savor of the genie-soul of the place which every place has or else is not a place. I could have been wrong: it could have been nothing of the sort, not the memory of a place but the memory of being a child. But one step out into the brilliant March day and there it is as big as life, the genie-soul of the place Which, wherever you go, you must meet and master first thing or be met and mastered. Until now, one genie-soul and only one ever proved too strong for me: San Francisco—up and down the hills I pursued him, missed him and was pursued, by a presence, a powdering of fall gold in the air, a trembling brightness that pierced to the heart, and the sadness of coming at last to the sea, the coming to the end of America. Nobody but a Southerner knows the wrenching rinsing sadness of the cities of the North. Knowing all about genie-souls and living in haunted places like Shiloh and the Wilderness and Vicksburg and Atlanta where the ghosts of heroes walk abroad by day and are more real than people, he knows a ghost when he sees one, and no sooner does he step off the train in New York or Chicago or San Francisco than he feels the genie-soul perched on his shoulder.”
― Walker Percy, The Moviegoer

“Some of you from outside the South may be wondering why we’re emphasizing this irrefutable historical fact that everyone should know so strongly already. Well, it’s because there has been an unfortunate tendency down here to deflect as much attention as possible away from the atrocities that the South was responsible for before, during, and after the war, and to focus on the glory, the courage, and all that kind of shit instead. We name roads, schools, and parks after Confederate leaders. We erect statues in their honor. We revere them and honor them, all while ignoring the gigantic racist elephant in the room. 4 Look, it ain’t nothinâ€� wrong with glory and courage, and it’s completely legitimate to acknowledge the military greatness of some of the Confederacy’s leaders, but what’s not okay is to do so without also acknowledging their complicity in and tacit acceptance of one of the single most reprehensible and inhumane practices in human history. 5 It’s disingenuous. It’s cheap. It’s cowardly. We gotta cut that shit out.

So, yes, we fought a war for slavery, and because sometimes the universe gets some shit right (waterfalls, potatoes, Scarlett Johansson), we lost. Which is another thing we apparently need to remind some of our fellow Southerners of. Not only did we fight a war for slavery, but we got our asses whupped. Until we can all agree to accept this and act accordingly, we’re never going to be able to move on. It’s nothing to be proud of, y’all—it really ain’t. We fought and we lost. But our defeat was a great victory for morality and for the country as a whole. Southerners tend to act as if the Civil War isn’t history but a scientific theory whose results can be disproven if discussed enough. It’s not. We lost. Get over it.”
― Trae Crowder, The Liberal Redneck Manifesto: Draggin' Dixie Outta the Dark

“But there was a difference in their hardness and hers and just what the difference was, she could not, for the moment, tell. Perhaps it was that there was nothing she would not do, and there were so many things these people would rather die than do. Perhaps it was that they were without hope but still smiling at life, bowing gracefully and passing it by. And this Scarlett could not do. She could not ignore life. She had to live it and it was too brutal, too hostile, for her even to try to gloss over its harshness with a smile. Of the sweetness and courage and unyielding pride of her friends, Scarlett saw nothing. She saw only a silly stiff-neckedness which observed facts but smiled and refused to look them in the face.”
― Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind

“Linnie. And this Winnie.â€� They wore identical smiles, their bright black eyes sparked with curiosity. “Are you the doctor?â€�
“No, I’m just volunteering.�
“I knowed that, too.� Winnie gave her an exaggerated shake of the head. “Girls is never the doctor. They’s the nurses.�
“Oh no, what about Dr. Clare? Huh? The lady doctor who took care of Grammy in the hospital when she broke her hip bone?� Linnie asked.
“Yeah, but she was a white lady. They can be doctors.� Winnie looked at Lucy. “Right? There are white lady doctors. I seen ‘em.�
Lucy felt her eyes go wide. Were there children who still believed your gender or color dictated your career? “There are white lady doctors, black lady doctors, white man doctors, black man doctors.�
They stared at her.
She thought for a moment. “And there are white man nurses and black man nurses, too.�
“Now you’re just beinâ€� silly,â€� Linnie said and let out a laugh.”
― Mary Jane Hathaway, Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread

“It’s just a party. You eat some food and drink a beer and pretend you don’t want to be crawdad fishing,â€� Angie said.
“No, it’s an echo chamber of sycophants and I can’t listen to some bimbo recite her newest purchases while pretending I don’t want to throw myself from the roof.”
― Mary Jane Hathaway, Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread

“Then the game became guessing where the storm would hit, or, in local parlance, “go in,â€� as if it were some stray relative in search of lodging.”
― Mary Karr, The Liars' Club

“But I didn't need to see him because he was there, he would always be there; maybe what Druscilla meant by his dream was not something which he possessed but something which he had bequeathed us which we could never forget, which would even assume the corporeal shape of him whenever any of us, black or white, closed our eyes.”
― William Faulkner, The Unvanquished: The Corrected Text

“The South: Three-wheeled Piggly Wiggly shopping carts, grease-caked engine blocks, baby strollers with shredded black hoods, Soviet rocket parts, human skulls on spikes and orange-eyed Rottweilers on heavy chains breathing fire...”
― Sean Condon, Lonely Planet Journeys: Drive Thru America

“As a child, I ate up the image Carl strived to portray: An inspirational rags-to-riches tale of a go-getter emerging the hell of his sulfur-scented, Podunk Texas upbringing. With a community college dropout education, Carl managed to reach six figures as a mobile home lot manager when the trailer park industry boomed in the early nineties. He decorated his accomplishments with a large house, yachts, and weekly morale shindigs for his salesmen bursting with open bars and filet mignon. However, my mother was by far his prettiest accessory.”
― Magda Young

“I lived in a picture perfect subdivision with color coordinated houses and mailboxes, yellow labs prancing within the borders of invisible electric fences, and balding dads on riding lawn mowers. It was the type of community where housewives spent their summers tanning by the pool, half-heartedly watching their Ritalin pumped brat beat another brat with a foam noodle while rehashing Sunday’s Bible study between whispers of Susie’s weight gain and Dan’s canoodling with the babysitter.”
― Maggie Young, Just Another Number

“It’s not the sickness that Number 23 reduced me to that frightens me. It’s how long I willingly ingested it. The last time I heard Number 23’s voice, he was telling me that I had a dependency on men, that I’d made him my life raft, that the only reason I put up with him was because I was broken inside. It was the truest thing I’ve ever been told. Although it was my life’s greatest detriment, I was unconscious of it. Unconscious male dependency was the fuel to my Number 23 rebound, a rebound that sent me back to my preteen anorexia, driving me to the vulnerable weakness that sent me crawling back to The South.”
― Maggie Young, Just Another Number

“Lucy paused, hands full of green beans, her memory flashing back to the giant pots of crawfish on the stove. Her Mama’s green eyes would squint into the steam, hair pulled back, a frown of concentration on her face. The salted water was flavored and ready to receive the “mudbugsâ€� out of their burlap sacks. Other than an onion or maybe an ear of corn, if it wasn’t alive when you threw it in, then it shouldn’t be in the pot, she’d say. Did her Mama mind that Lucy didn’t cook those old family recipes? Was she turning her back on her culinary heritage as surely as Paulette was?
She snapped the ends of the beans faster, glancing at the clock. This whole dinner was breaking her Mama’s cardinal rule: don’t hurry. She thought if a cook was in a hurry, you might as well just make a sandwich and go on your way.”
― Mary Jane Hathaway, Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread

“Maybe I should have got some chili-slaw dogs from Shorty’s. Everybody loves those.â€�
“Buddy,â€� Lars said, dropping his shoes to the deck with a thump, “sit yourself down and stop fussing. You’re reminding me of my Aunt Glynna with all this temperature takinâ€� and foil tuckinâ€�. This food is fine.”
― Mary Jane Hathaway, Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread

“Lucy saw the delighted expressions of the guests and knew they looked like something out an Austen movie. Well, at least Jem did. She giggled a little and cleared her throat.
“Something funny?� he murmured out of the corner of his mouth.
“Just thinking how you’re just like Captain Wentworth and I’m just like Tina Turner.”
― Mary Jane Hathaway, Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread

“I have a bad feeling about this,â€� she said.
“We’ll fake it. And if push comes to shove, we can just sing Goober Peas and waltz around.�
“Rebecca might not find that very funny.�
“Rebecca is a Northerner. You can tell because there aren’t any cheese straws on the snack table.”
― Mary Jane Hathaway, Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread

“His mama put down the bag and headed for the door, her mouth a thin line.
“Wait! What are you doing? Don’t go over there and yell at her.� Paul jumped off the stool and tried to beat her to the door.
“Oh, honey, I would never do that.â€� His mama stepped into the hallway. “I’m fixinâ€� to invite her for dinner.”
― Mary Jane Hathaway, The Pepper in the Gumbo

“And how many boyfriends have you had, Alice?â€�
“Mama,� Paul growled under his breath. “Let the girl eat.�
“Can you pass the biscuits?� Andy said. “These are great. So tasty. Fluffy. Just the right amount of…� He frowned at the one in his hand, “…dough.�
“It’s okay,â€� Alice said. She loved those two for trying to run interference, but she knew Creole mamas. They found out the truth, whether you wanted them to or not.”
― Mary Jane Hathaway, The Pepper in the Gumbo

“You don’t have to walk me back. I live down the hall.â€� She smiled up at him.
“My mama didn’t raise me like that,� Paul said, opening the door.
“Actually, your mama has some sense, and would say, ‘She lives twenty feet away,â€� but suit yourself,â€� Mrs. Olivier said.”
― Mary Jane Hathaway, The Pepper in the Gumbo

“Was I the only one who became unsettled and swoonish at the sight of a large, inverted carcass hanging from a tree, its vital organs strewn about like children's toys, the occasional pack of hunting dogs fighting over a lung, another one looking for a quiet place to enjoy the severed head? It happened all the time and nobody else seemed bothered. People just walked up to the bloody carcasses and carried on entirely normal conversations, as though a man wasn't standing there squeezing deer feces out of a large intestine and small children weren't playing football with a liver.”
― Harrison Scott Key, The World's Largest Man

“While the post-Civil War southerners were pushing as fast as they could into the New South, were grasping Yankee dollars with enthusiasm, they purified their motives in the well of Lost Causism. Politicians found it a bottomless source of bombast and ballots, preachers found it balm and solace to somewhat reluctant middle-class morals, writers found it a noble and salable theme.”
― Frank E. Vandiver

“[The South's] obsession was to maintain a government, an economy, an arrangement of the sexes, a relationship of the races, and a social system that had never existed...except in the fertile imagination of those who would not confront either the reality that existed or the change that would bring them closer to reality.”
― John Hope Franklin

“As the bus headed into the night, I noticed that the bench seat in the back of the bus was vacant. So I took my blanket and pillow, made my way to the back and stretched out. Rumbling along I was vaguely aware of the stops we made, but the night passed quickly. Eventually it started getting light outside, but looking around I saw that most people were still sleeping, including a Negro woman wearing a Navy uniform. She was a WAVE and must have boarded the bus sometime during the night. I had no idea where we were, but it didn’t matter as long as we were heading west.
Slowly the passengers woke up and looked around, including the young Negro lady. I never had a problem talking to people, so, striking up a conversation, I discovered that she was going home to Oklahoma City. I told her about being a cadet at Farragut and that I was now heading to California for the summer. Time always goes faster when there is someone to talk to and we had the entire back of the bus to ourselves. The first inkling that something was wrong came when we got off the bus for a rest stop in Little Rock, Arkansas. The driver told me that it wasn’t fitting to sit in the back of the bus with a Negro. I was dumbfounded, and coming from the North, I didn’t understand. I tried to explain that this woman was wearing the uniform of her country, but it didn’t make any difference. That’s just the way it was in the South!
We ran into the same kind of bigotry in the diner at our next rest stop, but before I could make an issue out of it, she hushed me up and explained that she just wanted to go home and didn’t need any problems. The two of us sat in the section for “Negroes Only,â€� where they served her but not this white boy, which is what I was called, along with other derogatory remarks. Never mind, I shared her sandwich and I guess they were just glad to get rid of us when we boarded the bus again. Behind me, I heard someone say something about my being a “nigger loverâ€�.... Big as life, I sat in the back again! This time no one said anything and everything seemed forgotten by the time she got off in Oklahoma City. Another driver came aboard and took over. Saying goodbye to my friend, I got up and moved back to the seat I had had originally -- the one over the big hump for the rear tires!”
― Captain Hank Bracker, "Seawater One...."

“â€� the South is the land of Washington, who made our Nation â€� of Jefferson, who shaped its direction â€� and of Robert E. Lee who, after gallant failure, urged those who had followed him in bravery to reunite America in purpose and courage.â€� --President John F. Kennedy”
― President John F. Kennedy

“You’ve only been engaged three hours. How in the world does this keep happening to you? Normal people don’t have bodies popping up in their lives like this except for that Jessica Fletcher woman in Cabot Cove. I can’t understand why anyone in their right mind would want to be her friend. They all wind up dead, and now you’re getting to be the same way.”
― Duffy Brown, Lethal in Old Lace

“If a person were to ask me what I saw South, I should tell him stink weed, sand, rattlesnakes, and alligators. To tell the honest truth, our boys out on picket look sharper for snakes than they do for rebels.”
― James Henry Gooding, On the Altar of Freedom: A Black Soldier's Civil War Letters from the Front