{"quotes":[{"text":"I know what it feels like to miss everything about him--the way he smells, the way his mouth curls up when he laughs, his voice.","author":"Travis Neighbor Ward","tags":["first-love","friendship","hurt","marriage","military-romance","parenting","romance","southern","true-love"],"id":4453,"author_id":"Travis+Neighbor+Ward"},{"text":"Is it possible to make a sharp distinction between the content and the the form, between the personality of the Texas auctioneer and the language that he uses? Are not our attitudes toward people and events in great part shaped by the very language in which we describe them? When we try to describe one person to another or to a group, what do we say? Not usually how or what that person ate, rarely what he wore, only occasionally how he managed his job -- no, what we tell is what he said and, if we are good mimics, how he said it. We apparently consider a person's spoken words the true essence of his being.","author":"Cleanth Brooks","tags":["language","linguistics","southern"],"id":5643,"author_id":"Cleanth+Brooks"},{"text":"My career still strikes me as miraculous. That a boy raised on Marine bases in the South, taught by Roman Catholic nuns in backwater Southern towns that loathed Catholics, and completed his education with an immersion into The Citadel—the whole story sounds fabricated, impossible even to me. Maybe especially to me.","author":"Pat Conroy","tags":["citadel","gratitude","marines","pat-conroy","southern"],"id":14778,"author_id":"Pat+Conroy"},{"text":"You'd think that a redheaded boy with glasses who was named Howard and had an up-down walk would have a lot more to wish for than being friends with me. But I admit I felt a smile on my face and hope in my heart, 'cause maybe wishes really do come true. Maybe some wishes just take longer than others.","author":"Barbara O'Connor","tags":["friend","friends","hope","southern","wish","wishes"],"id":19929,"author_id":"Barbara+O%27Connor"},{"text":"He was wearing a little bag of “Mojo” around his neck.","author":"Nancy B. Brewer","tags":["civil-war","historical-ficiton","history","romance-novel","southern"],"id":28236,"author_id":"Nancy+B.+Brewer"},{"text":"Snow flurries began to fall and they swirled around people's legs like house cats. It was magical, this snow globe world.","author":"Sarah Addison Allen","tags":["magic","snow","southern","the-south","winter"],"id":36319,"author_id":"Sarah+Addison+Allen"},{"text":"Texas humor and Southern humor are pretty similar.","author":"Daniel Woodrell","tags":["texas","southern","pretty "],"id":46242,"author_id":"Daniel+Woodrell"},{"text":"Ocean people are different from land people. The ocean never stops saying and asking into ears, which don’t sleep like eyes. Those who live by the sea examine the driftwood and glass balls that float from foreign ships. They let scores of invisible imps loose out of found bottles. In a scoop of salt water, they revive the dead blobs that have been beached in storms and tides: fins, whiskers, and gills unfold; mouths, eyes, and colors bloom and spread. Sometimes ocean people are given to understand the newness and oldness of the world; then all morning they try to keep that boundless joy like a little sun inside their chests. The ocean also makes its people know immensity.","author":"Maxine Hong Kingston","tags":["hawaii","immensity","joy","ocean","oceans","sea","southern","wonder"],"id":50082,"author_id":"Maxine+Hong+Kingston"},{"text":"First memory: a man at the back door is saying, I have real bad news, sweat is dripping off his face, Garbert's been shot, noise from my mother, I run to her room behind her, I'm jumping on the canopied bed while she cries, she's pulling out drawers looking for a handkerchief, Now, he's all right, the man say, they think, patting her shoulder, I'm jumping higher, I'm not allowed, they think he saved old man Mayes, the bed slats dislodge and the mattress collapses. My mother lunges for me.Many traveled to Reidsville for the event, but my family did not witness Willis Barnes's electrocution, From kindergarten through high school, Donette, the murderer's daughter, was in my class. We played together at recess. Sometimes she'd spit on me.","author":"Frances Mayes","tags":["childhood-memories","childhood-trauma","father","frances-mayes","memoir","mother","shooting","southern","southerners"],"id":72416,"author_id":"Frances+Mayes"},{"text":"...And should I die in her care, I would leave smiling because, I will linger in the hills beside her...","author":"Kellie Elmore","tags":["backroad","country","nostalgia","quotes","southern","tennessee","travel","travelling"],"id":82795,"author_id":"Kellie+Elmore"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":47,"pages":5,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}