If you cage a wild thing, you can be sure it will die, but if you let it run free, nine times out of ten it will run back home.

Remember, if people talk about you behind your back, it only means you are two steps ahead of them.

Strangely enough, the first character in Fried Green Tomatoes was the cafe, and the town. I think a place can be as much a character in a novel as the people.

Being a successful person is not necessarily defined by what you have achieved, but by what you have overcome.

I wonder how many people don't get the one they want, but end up with the one they're supposed to be with.

Don't give up before the miracle happens.

You're just a bee charmer, Idgie Threadgoode. That's what you are, a bee charmer.

Being an only child and losing both my parents at an early age, I have found that the friends I have made over the years are the people who help me get through life, good times and bad.

You know, a heart can be broken, but it keeps on beating, just the same.

The food in the South is as important as food anywhere because it defines a person's culture.

You never know what's in a person's heart until they're tested, do you?

I'd rather dig my own grave than rot in the sun.

Only out of great vulnerability do you discover what strength you have. Having a daughter who I love with all my being has helped me mine the source of that strength to previously unknown depths.

I'm not sure it pays to do anything remotely public in Britain. It's such a spiteful society. People seem to enjoy making your life hard for the sake of it.

Most people will not do the hard work it takes to make success easy. Don't be like most people.

What I found out about myself was I am not someone who doesn't believe in marriage.

I am Duchess of Malfi still.

Art is born in attention.

I'm a little nervous about public funding. It's better than what we got now.

Friendship is usually treated...as a tough...thing which will survive all manner of bad treatment. But this is an exceedingly great and foolish error; it may die in an hour of a single unwise word.

Fear is a great instructor.