We ain't never gonna lose this land.

Baby, we have no choice of what color we're born or who our parents are or whether we're rich or poor. What we do have is some choice over what we make of our lives once we're here.

I do not know how old I was when the daydreams became more than that, and I decided to write them down, but by the time I entered high school, I was confident that I would one day be a writer.

I'm a Southerner, born and bred, but that doesn't mean I approve of all that goes on here, and there are a lot of other white people who feel the same.

These are things they need to hear, baby. It's their history.

She grabbed his arm. "Let it be, son!" she cried. "That child ain't hurt!" "Not hurt! You look into her eyes and tell me she ain't hurt!

No day in all my life had ever been as cruel as this one.

There were too many ears that listened for others besides themselves, and too many tongues that wagged to those they shouldn't.

We Logans don't have much to do with white folks. You know why? 'Cause white folks mean trouble.

So many things are possible as long as you don't know they are impossible.

Now one day, maybe I can forgive John Andersen for what he done to these trees, but I ain't gonna forget it. I figure forgiving is not letting something nag at you—rotting you out.

The point that I think myself to be so terribly clever is the precise point at which I am beginning to think myself to be god-like, which causes me to become God-less.

And there are really never endings, happy or otherwise.

I get tickets all the time and can't stay under the speed limit. I'm bad at that.

In war more than anywhere else, things do not turn out as we expect.

I've told you before and I'll tell you again. The strong survive and the weak disappear. We do not intend to disappear.

Who needs action when you got words?

I hate gowns. It's a rare gown indeed that is cool. Most are elegant or whatever, a quality I don't put a big premium on.

Knowing that religion does not furnish grosser bigots than law, I expect little from old judges.

We become contemplatives when God discovers Himself in us.

I always equate wrestling to having been in the Marine Corps.