#in

Every Southerner, I think, knows people like Bill Clinton, maybe not quite as smart and maybe not quite as liberal, but kind of a glad-handing, country-club yuppie Southerner. The problem is we don't have labels for middle-class Southerners. ↗

— John Shelton Reed

#bill clinton #clinton #every #i #i think

I don't believe in dressing up reality. I don't believe in using makeup to make things look smoother. ↗

— Lou Reed

#dressing #i #look #make #makeup

Theories pass. The frog remains. ↗

— Jean Rostand

#pass #remains #theories

People say that writers write for money. From my own experience that's not true. I write for me. I publish for money. ↗

— Greg Curtis

#writing-advice #experience

I do believe states' rights was a sound doctrine that got hijacked by some unsavory customers for a while - like, 150 years or so. I'm professionally obliged to believe that knowledge is better than ignorance, but some kinds of forgetting are OK with me. ↗

— John Shelton Reed

#better #customers #doctrine #forgetting #got

I've occasionally wished I had Caller ID. Even telemarketers, I hate to hang up on them. I try to explain I'm not interested, but they have all these canned responses so I end up having to hang up on them anyway. ↗

— John Shelton Reed

#canned #end #even #explain #had

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

#care #define #geographical #live #lousy

Maybe we've been brainwashed by 130 years of Yankee history, but Southern identity now has more to do with food, accents, manners, music than the Confederate past. It's something that's open to both races, a variety of ethnic groups and people who move here. ↗

— John Shelton Reed

#been #both #brainwashed #confederate #ethnic

Southern barbecue is the closest thing we have in the U.S. to Europe's wines or cheeses; drive a hundred miles and the barbecue changes. ↗

— John Shelton Reed

#changes #closest #closest thing #drive #europe

The nature of the South is changing faster than the stereotypes are. Much of the South now looks like San Jose. Is it still southern? ↗

— John Shelton Reed

#faster #like #looks #much #nature