Florence King Quotes - Page 2

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• Of all the old maid's blessing, the greatest is carte blanche. Spinsterhood is powerful; once a woman is called "that crazy old maid" she can get away with anything.

  Florence King

  Single, Powerful, Crazy

  11 Copy quote

• There is much to be said for post-menopausal celibacy. Sex is rough on loners because you have to have somebody else around, but now I don't. No more diets to stay slim and desirable: I've had sex and I've had food, and I'd rather eat.

  Florence King

  Sex, Loner, Slim

  Florence King (1991). “Lump It Or Leave It”, p.10, Macmillan

  9 Copy quote

• Southerners have a genius for psychological alchemy...If something intolerable simply cannot be changed, driven away or shot they will not only tolerate it but take pride in it as well.

  Florence King

  Pride, Genius, Psychological

  11 Copy quote

• We worship education but hate learning. We worship success but hate the successful. We worship fame but hate the famous.

  Florence King

  Hate, Learning, Successful

  7 Copy quote

• I'm for prayer in the schools because ritual and ceremony are calming and civilizing, and the little fartlings should be tamped down whenever possible.

  Florence King

  Prayer, School, Littles

  12 Copy quote

• I've always said that next to Imperial China, the South is the best place in the world to be an old lady.

  Florence King

  World, Next, Best Place

  7 Copy quote

• When you go apartment-hunting in the South, you encounter little old ladies who ask you if you use strong drink. In New York you encounter paranoids who wonder if you will commit suicide--not that they care; what they worry about is blood on their fresh paint, a dubious smell in the hallway, or a hole in the awning as you pass through on your way to the sidewalk. The Southerner who moves to any part of the country has problems, but the culture shock that attacks the Southerner who moves North is almost indescribable.

  Florence King

  Suicide, Country, Strong

  Florence King (1976). “Southern ladies and gentlemen”

  8 Copy quote

• The witty woman is a tragic figure in American life. Wit destroys eroticism and eroticism destroys wit, so women must choose between taking lovers and taking no prisoners.

  Florence King

  Love, Witty, Figures

  11 Copy quote

• Golf is an exercise in Scottish pointlessness for people who are no longer able to throw telephone poles at each other.

  Florence King

  Exercise, Golf, People

  19 Copy quote

• It's the Government's job to print the money, deliver the mail and declare war. Now give me my cigarettes.

  Florence King

  Money, Jobs, War

  9 Copy quote

• The joker in the deck of lesbian fidelity is female vanity: no woman of fifty is going to undress in front of a woman of twenty no matter how much she might lust for her.

  Florence King

  Vanity, Lust, Twenties

  "The Florence King Reader". Book by Florence King, 1995.

  4 Copy quote

• There is more sexism in a year's worth of movies than actually exists in a woman's entire lifetime.

  Florence King

  Years, Lifetime, Sexism

  Florence King (1991). “Lump It Or Leave It”, p.65, Macmillan

  8 Copy quote

• Keep dating and you will become so sick, so badly crippled, so deformed, so emotionally warped and mentally defective that you will marry anybody.

  Florence King

  Sick, Dating, Defective

  4 Copy quote

• Now the only thing I miss about sex is the cigarette afterward. Next to the first one in the morning, it's the best one of all. It tasted so good that even if I had been frigid I would have pretended otherwise just to be able to smoke it.

  Florence King

  Morning, Sex, Cigarette Smoke

  Florence King (1991). “Lump It Or Leave It”, p.10, Macmillan

  10 Copy quote

• It takes only one child to raze a village.

  Florence King

  Children, Village

  7 Copy quote

• Agoraphobia was my quirky armor against a gregarious America.

  Florence King

  America, Quirky, Armor

  Florence King (1982). “When sisterhood was in flower”, Viking Pr

  15 Copy quote

• Affirmative action was designed originally for "women and other minorities" but the phrase has become just another tortured euphemism. Female conscientiousness and eagerness to please have always made women good students and natural test takers. Jews have gloried in scholarship throughout the ages, and Asians of both sexes score so high on SATs and IQ tests that they regard affirmative action as an impediment. Affirmative action really means favoritism for blacks for the sake of racial peace, but the favor is pure chimera, and so, increasingly, is the peace.

  Florence King

  Sex, Mean, Race

  23 Copy quote

• Kings and queens might do wicked things, but they don't nag. One thing I like about Bloody Mary: she never said a word about lung cancer.

  Florence King

  Kings, Queens, Cancer

  Florence King (1990). “Reflections In A Jaundiced Eye”, p.127, Macmillan

  12 Copy quote

• to a Southerner it is faux pas, not sins, that matter in this world.

  Florence King

  World, Matter, Sin

  Florence King (1993). “Southern Ladies & Gentlemen”, p.12, Macmillan

  6 Copy quote

• Oppressed people are treacherous for the simple reason that treachery is both a means of survival and a way to curry favor with one's oppressor.

  Florence King

  Mean, Simple, People

  Florence King (1993). “Southern Ladies & Gentlemen”, p.155, Macmillan

  7 Copy quote

• Chinks in America's egalitarian armor are not hard to find. Democracy is the fig leaf of elitism.

  Florence King

  Women, Egalitarianism, America

  Florence King (1990). “Reflections In A Jaundiced Eye”, p.97, Macmillan

  8 Copy quote

• There's no national glue holding us together because somebody put too much pluribus in the unum.

  Florence King

  Together, Glue, Too Much

  11 Copy quote

• The nice thing about Southerners is the way we enjoy our neuroses.

  Florence King

  Nice, Neurosis, Way

  7 Copy quote

• Each time a mediocre singer performs, he is saying, in effect, "This is good enough for you." The audience, thrust into that familiar American mood of knowing something is wrong but not knowing what it is, unconsciously absorbs the insult and projects it back onto the mediocre performer in the form of inattention, rudeness and noise.

  Florence King

  Knowing, Mediocrity, Singers

  Florence King (1991). “Lump It Or Leave It”, p.58, Macmillan

  11 Copy quote

• A cardinal rule of writing is never interrupt yourself to explain something. If you must bring up an obscure topic, drop informative hints about it as you go along so that you don't end up with the entire explanation all in one place. This keeps you from skidding to a stop and sounding teacherish. Otherwise it's better to omit the obscure topic altogether, or as mothers might put it: if you can't say it interestingly, don't say it at all.

  Florence King

  Mother, Writing, Topics

  8 Copy quote

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