"Have you done your homework?" my mother would ask. "I'll do it later." "You will do it now, young man. I don't want you winding up on the third shift at Flagg-Utica." Flagg-Utica was a local textile plant. Somehow, I never could figure how failing to read three chapters in my geography book about the various sorts of vegetation to be found in a tropical rain forest had anything to do with facing a life as a mill hand. But with enough guilt and fear as catalysts, you can read anything, even geography books and Deuteronomy.

I'd much rather sit next to a smoker in a restaurant than a nose-blower.

Spring time is the land awakening.

There's no such thing as being too Southern.

Instead of getting married again, I'm going to find a woman I don't like and give her a house.

It's difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato.

Money doesn't grow on trees, and if it did somebody else would own the orchard.