Best Southern Lit Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“...Mellungeons… their entire lives appeared devoted to the production of the ragged line of scions which shoeless and tattered sat for hours at a time on the porch edges, themselves not unlike the victims of some terrible disaster, and stared out across the blighted land with expressions of neither hope nor wonder nor despair. They came and went, unencumbered as migratory birds, each succeeding family a replica of the one before and only the names on the mailboxes altered, the new ones lettered crudely in above a rack of paint smears that obliterated the former occupants back into the anonymity from which they sprang.”

Poverty Generations Hopelessness Bleak Southern Lit Destitution

Book:The Orchard Keeper

Source: The Orchard Keeper

“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.”

Murder Unions North Carolina Southern Fiction Southern Writers Southern Lit Organizers Union Busting

Book:The Last Ballad

Source: The Last Ballad

“Everything changes except human behavior and its consequences.”

Young Adult Suspense Historical Fiction Non Fiction Horses North Carolina Southern Lit Lumbee Indians Mustangs The Lost Colony

Book:The Gamecocks

Source: The Gamecocks

“You may suppose that perhaps this Walter T. Wallace found his destiny in food and passed down to his progeny a legacy like that of the great Colonel Sanders. The folks here in Wallace County would love to be able to tell you this is so. But no, like their granddaddy, the Wallace men were thievin’ crooks, always with a scheme ready to separate the weak from their hard-earned money.”

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Book:Midnight Beneath the Magnolia

Source: Midnight Beneath the Magnolia

“I know this place like I know the calluses on my hands.”

Landscape Small Town Farming Environmentalism Nature S Beauty Small Town Life Philosophical Musings Southern Fiction Farm Life Nature Writing Environmental Values Southern Lit Southern Literature Landscapes Of The Heart

Book:Dogwood Blues

Source: Dogwood Blues

“He tried the crank radio, a pirate station out of Memphis. Static and guitar scratch, the straggling notes of a song about home.”

Satire Southern Fiction Southern Writers Southern Lit Southern Literature Novels In Verse

Author:David Wesley Williams, Everybody Knows (2023)

“Dogwood Blues by Brenda Sutton Rose is a masterful work of classic small-town fiction.”

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Author:Janice Daugharty

“Them dandelion wishes float and float for miles hoping they might get lucky and find a place to root.”

Southern Fiction Southern Writers Randy Camp Southern Lit False Dandelions

Book:False Dandelions

Source: False Dandelions

“Young man, we find our place in this world, we don't force our way in it!”

Southern Fiction Randy Camp Southern Lit False Dandelions

Book:False Dandelions

Source: False Dandelions

“Iam a writer. I just happen to propagate mint and love bundt cake.”

Southern Lit Southern Girl Sojourner Truth

Author:Toni Orrill

“He had been hurt doing everything he had ever done. He expected it, even wanted it. Nothing centered a man like pain. Nothing drove the irrelevant bullshit our of your mind like the taste of your own blood. Duffy always wanted to tell people who were worried about the future of their children, or about God and the order of the universe, to go out and break a rib or two. A few broken ribs threw all thoughts of children, God and the order of the universe right out the window. Nobody with broken ribs ever had free-floating anxiety, or so Duffy was convinced. It was cheaper that a psychiatrist and never so humiliating.”

Southern Lit Country Noir Redneck Noir All We Need Of Hell Southern Grit

Author:Harry Crews

“Georgia Author Brenda Sutton Rose captures some of the conflicted and captivating characters of a rapidly changing South.”

Ecology Gay Marriage Gay Rights Nature S Beauty Southern Fiction Southern Lit Gay Protagonists Georgia Authors

Author:Janisse Ray

“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.”

Motherhood Mother S Love Southern Fiction Southern Lit Southern Literature

Book:Dogwood Blues

Source: Dogwood Blues

“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.”

Humor Bridge Southern Fiction Southern Lit Southern Literature Southern Humor Bridge Playing Card Playing

Book:Dogwood Blues

Source: Dogwood Blues

“Patient: Where is Carey Street? Miss Ida: "Go stand out in the street and you'll find it.”

Mississippi Southern Fiction Southern Lit Poppykingthenovelseries Louisiana Bayou Mystery Miss Ida

Author:Toni Orrill, M.Ed.

“I don't really like to go on emotional rides with people. I like to drive.”

Southern Lit Southern Literature Poppykingthenovelseries

Author:Toni Orrill

“I have learn'd Poppy that people come an' go. Only Jesus is your true friend. And even He had Judas. Git rid of your Judas. Like your sister. Marc has lost his mind. Buying one gift for her an' anoth'r for Cherie. That boy bet'r git himself home. There's ain't no blessing in sin, I tell ya. The devil roams, he prowls Poppy and a man's heart is fertile territory.”

Mississippi Louisiana Southern Fiction Southern Lit Am Writing

Author:Toni Orrill