#southerner

Every culture has its southerners -- people who work as little as they can, preferring to dance, drink, sing brawl, kill their unfaithful spouses; who have livelier gestures, more lustrous eyes, more colorful garments, more fancifully decorated vehicles, a wonderful sense of rhythm, and charm, charm, charm; unambitious, no, lazy, ignorant, superstitious, uninhibited people, never on time, conspicuously poorer (how could it be otherwise, say the northerners); who for all their poverty and squalor lead enviable lives -- envied, that is, by work-driven, sensually inhibted, less corruptly governed northerners. We are superior to them, say the northerners, clearly superior. We do not shirk our duties or tell lies as a matter of course, we work hard, we are punctual, we keep reliable accounts. But they have more fun than we do ... They caution[ed] themselves as people do who know they are part of a superior culture: we mustn't let ourselves go, mustn't descend to the level of the ... jungle, street, bush, bog, hills, outback (take your pick). For if you start dancing on tables, fanning yourself, feeling sleepy when you pick up a book, developing a sense of rhythm, making love whenever you feel like it -- then you know. The south has got you. ↗

— Susan Sontag

#culture #north #north-and-south #northerners #perceptions

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

#between #blacks #browns #decided #difference

Andrew Johnson was a Southerner generally who proclaimed that his native state of Tennessee was a country for white men. ↗

— Stephen Ambrose

#country #generally #his #johnson #men

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

— Reynolds Price

#amount #being #fair #i #i think

I'm a Southerner - I never take satisfaction in touching a nerve. I guess if I'm forced to find a good side, I'm glad that people are talking about an issue that hasn't really been discussed all that much. I'm glad that people are talking about it from the black perspective and the white perspective. ↗

— Kathryn Stockett

#been #black #discussed #find #forced

Southerners love a good tale. They are born reciters, great memory retainers, diary keepers, letter exchangers . . . great talkers. ↗

— Eudora Welty

#love

That's when I caught my first glimpse of Blaine Crabtree. He was sandwiched in between two guys that were laughing at who knows what. At first I didn't notice anything but a big mop of bleached blonde hair, then he looked up from his pack of cloves and I was locked into the bluest eyes that I had ever seen. His expression didn't change, he didn't smile and didn't blink. It seemed like I was lost in his eyes, like he was using them to do the most calculated math problem, and that math problem was me. ↗

— Magan Vernon

#new-adult #romance #southerners #change

I decided to deflect her attitude by giving a long, Southern answer. I come from people who know how to draw things out. Annoy a Southerner, and we will drain away the moments of your life with our slow, detailed replies until you are nothing but a husk of your former self and that much closer to death. ↗

— Maureen Johnson

#shades-of-london #southerners #the-name-of-the-star #ya #young-adult

When we became teenagers boredom grew like a moth in a cocoon fighting to escape, and the peace created by our parents became a prison. We sought excitement and adventure. We sought anything but the sinless, pure, and average of the faux idyllic. ↗

— Scott Thompson

#coming-of-age-stories #growing-up #southern-fiction #southern-gothic #southerners

We have been told to ask about everything: Will it leave us free? ↗

— Ben Robertson

#scots-irish #southerners #freedom