Southerner Quotes - Page 3

• Lincoln had internalized the pain of those around him-the wounded soldiers, the captured prisoners, the defeated Southerners. Little wonder that he was overwhelmed at times by a profound sadness that even his own resilient temperament could not dispel.

  Doris Kearns Goodwin

  Pain, Sadness, Profound

  Doris Kearns Goodwin (2006). “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln”, p.724, Simon and Schuster

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• I cannot speak so confidently about the fighting qualities of the Eastern men, or what are called Yankees - not knowing myself particularly to whom the appellation belongs - but this I do know - if the Southerners think that man for man they are better than our Illinois men, or western men generally, they will discover themselves in a grievous mistake.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Mistake, Fighting, Men

  Abraham Lincoln (2002). “Conversations With Lincoln”, p.158, Transaction Publishers

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• 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”

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• Southern food that appears in contemporary popular culture is so exaggerated that it's hardly recognizable to most Southerners. This enriching of Southern food - fatter, richer, more over the top - is what we typically see on TV, in Hollywood films, and in Southern-style or country-themed chains like Cracker Barrel. Southern food becomes a caricature, like characters and props in a reality TV show.

  Marcie Cohen Ferris

  Character, Reality, Southern

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• I am a southerner who grew up with and around guns. I own some still. My father gave me a .22 rifle when I was 9 and a single barrel .410 shotgun when I was 10.

  Jon Meacham

  Father, Gun, Rifles

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• We could say that people who eat grits, listen to country music, follow stock-car racing, support corporal punishment in the schools, hunt 'possum, go to Baptist churches and prefer bourbon to Scotch are likely to be Southerners.

  John Shelton Reed

  Country, School, Scotch

  John Shelton Reed (1993). “My Tears Spoiled My Aim, and Other Reflections on Southern Culture”, p.15, University of Missouri Press

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• If you care to define the South as a poor, rural region with lousy race relations, that South survives only in geographical shreds and patches and most Southerners don't live there any more.

  John Shelton Reed

  Race, Care, Poor

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• I can see why many Southerners, black ones in particular, don't like the implication that Southernness and the Confederate heritage are one and the same, because they're not. On the other hand, there are people who want to extirpate that completely and want folks to spit on the graves of their ancestors.

  John Shelton Reed

  Hands, People, Black

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• The average Southerner has the speech patterns of someone slipping in and out of consciousness. I can change my shoes and socks faster than most people in Mississippi can speak a sentence.

  Bill Bryson

  Average, Shoes, People

  Bill Bryson (1989). “The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-town America”, p.69, VNR AG

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• Most Southerners recognize when a story about their own experience feels off-kilter or offensive. But Southerners are also fascinated by the way their region is presented in popular culture. It is exciting to see how filmmakers take great care to present worlds in which race, region, and food are deeply intertwined.

  Marcie Cohen Ferris

  Culture, World, Care

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• But I still do believe that there are useful things to say about Elvis Presley, including what his own ordinariness as a poor Southerner says about 20th-century hero-making.

  John Shelton Reed

  Believe, Hero, Poor

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• I'm a Southerner. We dream of having the family and the kids, and the parents want grandkids, that's all they care about, give me some grandbabies.

  Lance Bass

  Dream, Kids, Giving

  "Lance Bass Wants to Get Married". The Daily Beast Interview, people.com. August 03, 2011.

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• First of all, "redneck" is a state of mind, not a person. So the "racist redneck" thing is a state of mind, not a geographical location. So I don't mean to imply that it's just Southerners. And if you don't recognize the racist underpinnings and the emotional reactive response you're getting from these teabaggers because we have a black president, then you are either being dishonest, or you've never seen the teabaggers.

  Janeane Garofalo

  Mean, Redneck, Emotional

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• It is out of fashion in these days to look backward rather than forward. About the only American given to it is some unreconstructed Southerner, who persists in his regard for a certain terrain, a certain history, and a certain inherited way of living.

  John Crowe Ransom

  Fashion, Looks, Way

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• Basically there is no difference between whites and blacks, browns and yellows. I decided to think no more of people as Northerners and Southerners.

  Ethel Waters

  Thinking, Yellow, Differences

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• Back so soon?" he asked. "Too bad. I was just about to organize a search for your dead body. What happened when you knocked on the southerner magician's door to sacrifice yourself? Did they kick you out, thinking you too half-witted to waste their time on?

  Maria V. Snyder

  Sacrifice, Thinking, Doors

  Maria V. Snyder (2008). “The Study Series Bundle: Poison Study\Assassin Study\Magic Study\Fire Study”, p.324, MIRA

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• Southerners have many fine qualities, charm and civility among them, and a sense of the tragic.

  Dean Koontz

  Quality, Civility, Charm

  Dean Koontz (2014). “The Odd Thomas Series 7-Book Bundle: Odd Thomas, Forever Odd, Brother Odd, Odd Hours, Odd Apocalypse, Odd Interlude, Deeply Odd”, p.673, Bantam

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• Being Southerners, it was a source of shame to some members of the family that we had no recorded ancestors on either side of the Battle of Hastings.

  Harper Lee

  Battle, Sides, Shame

  Harper Lee (2014). “To Kill a Mockingbird (Enhanced Edition)”, p.7, Harper Collins

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• She was one of those Southerners who knew from an early age that the South could never be more for them than a fragrant prison, administered by a collective of loving but treacherous relatives.

  Pat Conroy

  Age, Prison, Collectives

  Pat Conroy (2010). “The Prince of Tides: A Novel”, p.28, Open Road Media

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• Their prejudice allowed white Southerners to look the other way when blacks were denied their most basic human rights, and it encouraged the worst of them to engage in unspeakable acts of cruelty and violence.

  Linda Chavez

  White, Rights, Violence

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• Shadwell hated all southerners and, by inference, was standing at the North Pole.

  Terry Pratchett

  Good Omens, Inference, Hated

  "Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman - fun, with footnotes" by Justine Jordan, www.theguardian.com. December 15, 2015.

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• Southerners ask intimate questions in the way monkeys groom each other for lice, not to pry but to make you feel cared for.

  Reynolds Price

  Lice, Monkeys, Way

  Reynolds Price (2000). “Tongues of Angels: A Novel”, Scribner

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• I think we Southerners have talked a fair amount of malarkey about the mystique of being Southern.

  Reynolds Price

  Thinking, Southern, Mystique

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• I'll always consider myself a Southerner. A lot of people put California down, but my dreams were realized there.

  Billy Bob Thornton

  Dream, California, People

  Source: www.foxnews.com

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• Pres. Lyndon Johnson was a middle-aged man of smalltown America, both a Westerner and a Southerner, and except where politics had demonstrably forced his growth-as on the question of civil rights-he functioned like most men, as a product of his background.

  Tom Wicker

  Character, Men, Rights

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