Tennessee Quotes

“I was in Nashville, Tennessee last year. After the show I went to a Waffle House. I'm not proud of it, I was hungry. And I'm alone, I'm eating and I'm reading a book, right? Waitress walks over to me: 'Hey, whatcha readin' for?' Isn't that the weirdest fuckin' question you've ever heard? Not what am I reading, but what am I reading FOR? Well, goddamnit, ya stumped me! Why do I read? Well... hmmm...I dunno...I guess I read for a lot of reasons and the main one is so I don't end up being a fuckin' waffle waitress.”
― Bill Hicks

“Puttin’ on a cowboy hat & a pair of boots doesn’t make you country; Like puttin’ on a ball gown & glass heels won’t make me Cinderella.”
― Kellie Elmore

“It would be one of those evenings when lady luck showed the bitchy streak in her nature”
― Tennessee Williams

“I placed a jar in Tennessee and round it
was upon a hill.”
― Wallace Stevens

“...and should I die in her care, I would leave smiling because, I will linger in the hills beside her...”
― Kellie Elmore, Magic in the Backyard

“The little town of Dayton - not far from where Katz and I now sat, as it happened - was the scene of the famous Scopes trial in 1925, when the state prosecuted a schoolteacher named John Thomas Scopes for rashly promulgating Darwinian hogwash. As nearly everyone knows, Clarence Darrow, for the defense, roundly humiliated William Jennings Bryan, for the prosecution, but what most people don't realize is that Darrow lost the case. Scopes was convicted, and the law wasn't overturned in Tennessee until 1967. And now the state was about to bring the law back, proving conclusively that the danger for Tennesseans isn't so much that they may be descended from apes as overtaken by them.”
― Bill Bryson

“In the 80s a Tennessee cousin decided he wanted to be a pro-wrestler. There was no real need to train or prepare back then. They just had him arrive a bit early to learn all he needed to know. After showing him a few tricks to sell the action he was handed a fake blood capsule. Fans liked to see the match end in blood. But that cousin was there to fight. Wrestling was real. The bell rang and punches were thrown." Dirty "Dick Slater split my cousin's head open with an elbow. The match ended in blood as the crowd cheered. Anything can be real for a single night.”
― Damon Thomas, Some Books Are Not For Sale

“People might think folks in the South are nosey. Folks in the South don't ask questions to learn something; they ask to find out what you know. If you act like you don't know much, they will tell you everything they know. If you talk like you know a lot, they think you're just showing off, and they'll walk off and leave you, because they don't want to listen to you.”
― Bill Peach

“The ground had opened up and spit out hell, Nell thought, and the detritus was Shiloh.”
― Kelsey Brickl, Hardtack: A Civil War Story

“I don’t want no drummer. I set the tempo.”
― Bessie Smith

“When my bed is empty, Makes me feel awful mean and blue. My springs are getting rusty, Living single like I do.”
― Bessie Smith

“N’ another thing,” Mitch said reaching into his pocket. “I made ya this,” he continued, opening his hand to reveal a ring. “Yer gonna be causin’ lots of talk ’round here ‘bout where ya came from n’ why yer boy ain’t got no papa here ‘bouts. I sanded the high spots so it’ll shine when ya hold it to th’ light. Ye can determine if ye wants to wear it.” she smiled as she slipped it onto the finger of her left hand. “I will wear it until I see no need.”
― Patricia Ann Ledford, Strings: The Story of Hope

“They closed the transient 5th Avenue Motel and now where will they go? They came from all over to stay for a night or a month or whatever they could afford, however they can afford it – and now it’s gone, broken windows boarded up, chain link fence surrounding it like it’s a dog with scurvy. The transient hotel drained pale, pissing in an empty ashtray.”
― Scott C. Holstad

“Scarcely a day went by without Edwards starting a fight or challenging a guard or refusing to cooperate in some way. The officers tried increasingly harsh discipline but to no avail. Their threats and punishments were no more successful at curbing Dave’s behavior than they would be had they been levied against an incarcerated raccoon.”
― Kimberly Tilley, Grievous Deeds: The True Story of Four Years of Fury in Chattanooga, Tennessee

“Scotland's contribution to American balladry is a subject which was either glossed over or neglected entirely by Cecil Sharp, the English folklorist and ballad collector, when he came over to the United States in search of traditional song poetry. Over here we are indebted to Sharp and to Miss Maud Karpeles for exploring the back country and helping us find what we had. Their visits were fruitful and theirEnglish Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachiansis an exemplary work. But it is regrettable that a Scottish folklorist, familiar and in tune with Lowland traditions, was not close at hand to make a few claims of his own.

Somebody needed to suggest that Scotland had as good a claim to half the British ballads Sharp collected in Tennessee, Virginia and North Carolina as England has. Somebody might have suggested thatEnglish Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachiansis a misleading title - that British Folk Songs would have been more accurate. For, after all, the most authoritative editor in the business, Francis J. Child, had clearly recognised two national traditions in his monumentalEnglish and Scottish Popular Ballads,which is the keystone work on which all subsequent studies have been based.”
― Herschel Gower, Saltire Review 20, Spring 1960