19 Southerners Quotes for You to Enjoy

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

People Think No Difference Browns Blacks More Between Southerners Difference Decided Whites Basically

We could say that people who eat grits, listen to country music, follow stock-car racing, support corporal punishment in the schools, hunt 'possum, go to Baptist churches and prefer bourbon to Scotch are likely to be Southerners. John Shelton Reed

Music People Country Corporal Say Churches Punishment Hunt Follow Eat Could Support Country Music Bourbon Likely Schools Go Scotch Southerners Listen Baptist Prefer Racing Who

I came from a big family... a big family of Southerners. Blake Lively

Family Big Came Big Family Southerners

Even in the '80s and '90s, many white Southerners were still bitter about court decisions that required racial integration of the schools. It wasn't that they were outwardly opposed to white and black people attending school together, it was that the rulings threatened their proud identity as independent Southerners. Brianna Wu

Together People School Black White Bitter Independent Threatened About Attending Schools Identity Court Proud Still Opposed Were Integration Southerners Decisions Racial Required Many Even

I had in mind a message, although I hope it doesn't intrude too badly, persuading Americans, and especially Southerners, of the critical importance of land and our vanishing natural environment and wildlife. E. O. Wilson

You know, Southerners are pretty cool. Fred Schneider

You Pretty Know Southerners Cool

Starting in the early 1800s, Southerners in the United States began to defend slavery as their 'peculiar institution,' and northerners didn't mind, since the phrase suggested that chattel bondage was quarantined from the rest of the nation: that it was, or soon would be, a relic of its past and would not define its future. Greg Grandin

Future Mind Rest Nation Past Define States Relic Would Would-Be Phrase Soon Since Institution Began Southerners United United States Early Suggested Bondage Slavery Defend Starting Peculiar

I certainly think that Southerners are tough, and I take pride in that. Jake Peavy

Pride Tough Think Take Southerners Certainly

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

People Problem Smart Every Think Liberal Kind Like Knows Clinton Labels Southerner Southerners Quite Maybe Bill Bill Clinton

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

Southerners smile more than other Americans. John Shelton Reed

Smile Other More Than Southerners American

I can see why many Southerners, black ones in particular, don't like the implication that Southernness and the Confederate heritage are one and the same, because they're not. On the other hand, there are people who want to extirpate that completely and want folks to spit on the graves of their ancestors. John Shelton Reed

The Mormons' passage from bugbears of the Republican Party to its stalwarts may be analogized to a similar move among middle-class white Southerners, to whom the Republican Party was anathema until the 1970s and '80s, after which it became almost the sole representative. Noah Feldman

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

Think About Mystique Fair Fair Amount Talked Southern Southerners Being Amount

I think of myself as a Hollywood hillbilly, but I'm sick of all these questions people ask about Alabama. 'Do you have an outhouse?' 'Is there a lot of inbreeding in your family?' They think all Southerners don't have computers and TV sets and that we're all still living in 1862. Sunny Mabrey

Mercer was very clever. He knew the way Southerners spoke and put that into his lyrics. But in that whole era, you had the best. Harold Arlen was just fantastic. Cole Porter was better than anybody, and Gershwin was Gershwin, y'know. Johnny Mercer started Capitol Records, and he brought in Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Nat King Cole. Tony Bennett

Best You Better King Clever Cole Porter Harold Lyrics Way Brought Martin Johnny Records Had He Put Knew Spoke Sinatra Dean Dean Martin Era Nat King Cole His Very Gershwin Than Southerners Just Anybody Fantastic Capitol Whole Porter Started