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21 " Build a fence around the South and you'd have one big madhouse. "
― Florence King
22 " To make sure I learned the etiquette of grieving, Granny took me with her to the many funerals she attended. O Death, where is thy sting? Search me. I grew up looking at so many corpses that I still feel a faint touch of surprise whenever I see people move. "
― Florence King , Reflections in a Jaundiced Eye
23 " Children have no business expressing opinions on anything except "Do you have enough room in the toes? "
24 " How can she grow up to be a lady if she's always got her nose in a book? "
― Florence King , Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady: A Memoir
25 " Feminists will not be satisfied until every abortion is performed by a gay black doctor under an endangered tree on a reservation for handicapped Indians. "
26 " even my different drummer heard a different drummer "
27 " One of the most startling phenomena I ever witnessed occured in the South after the Arab- israelei Six-day war. I doubt if the world has ever seen such a rapid ceasefire in anti-semetism. I heard one Southern man after another say in tones that i can only describe as gleeful: 'by dern, those Jew boys sure can fight!' One man seriously recommended that Congress pass a special act making Moshe Dayan an American citizen so that he could become Secretary of Defense. He had obviously found a new hero;'as he put it 'That one-eyed bastid would wipe out anybody offin the map whut gave us any trouble. "
― Florence King , Southern Ladies and Gentlemen
28 " Nothing is more frustrating than sitting in an office amid typewriters and mimeographers when you know what deus ex machina means. "
29 " For a girl gone wrong, you can't beat the banks of the Wabash. "
― Florence King , The Florence King Reader
30 " There is no such thing as a fallen woman; when she steps out of her place, she always steps up. "
31 " There's no such thing as a 'writing talent.' Anyone can be taught to write a good sentence. What writers are born with is a 'third ear,' not for words but for human nature. And like people with an ear for music who can play the piano without lessons or notes, we can't explain how we know what we know — we just know. "
― Florence King , Withering Slights: The Bent Pin Collection 2007-2012
32 " The Southern girl is usually an unsalvageable narcissist by the time she gets to junior high school because she has grasped the charming fact that her body, especially its exclusively female parts, has the power to make strong men weak - and strong governments fall. toppling a government was an easy thing to dream about when i was a little girl because that famous Maryland lady, the Duchess of Windsor, had actually cond it a few years earlier. She had accomplished what we were all taught to do: Cause trouble. 'isn't she wonderful.' we breathed, 'she just got everybody so upset! Wouldn't it be just the most fun to upset a whole country? She almost caused a war - she must have bumped Edward with her bust. oh, I'd just love to start a war, wouldn't you? "
33 " The Southern man has a certain swagger about him that every woman craves in a man, whether she is willing to admit it or not. in this depressingly utilitarian age, when young lovers remove identical faded jeans and pea jackets before getting into bed together, the thought of a beau sabreur lover is not unappealing, Neither the overbearing male chauvinist nor the supportive gelding are capalbe of stirring the female blood, but a dashing cavalier is. "
34 " The more immoral we become in big ways, the more puritanical we become in little ways. "
35 " I saw how dating chipped away tiny pieces of a woman’s self-confidence; piece by piece, date by date, she was diminished by some form of unnatural behavior forced on her by social usage. "
36 " If you tried to get to the right of me you would fall off the end of the earth because, you see, it's flat. I started out as a paleoconservative but that eventually ceased to satisfy. Paleos are comparable to the Romans of the Early Republic, but I had stopped believing in republics because they invariably degenerate into democracy, that Great Fan that everything hits sooner or later. There was only one place for me, politically and temperamentally, so I became a royalist. I believe in absolute monarchy and the divine right of kings, but other than that I'm moving left. "
37 " His Grace called Virginius in and said: "Do you think a priest of the Anglican Communion should be a divorced man with two wives living?" That's the way he talks. And do you know what Virginius said? He said: "Your Grace, if it weren't for divorce, there wouldn't be an Anglican Communion. "
― Florence King , When Sisterhood Was in Flower
38 " The really unfailing sign of a belle is that she exhausts people. In the old days, a girl could faint, which meant that some man had to pick her up and carry her while two or three others ran hither and yon fetching smelling salrs, water, or a litter on which to cart her away. This simply doesn't happen any more. Passing out from too much straight bourbon is just not as bellelike as fainting from unknown causes, nor is it as fastidious. "
39 " How is it?”Not like Father used to make. ‘Perfect.’ Soon, very soon, my lie became the truth. Martinis are like that, especially when shared with someone whose name you have whispered to yourself just for the magic of its sound. "
40 " Ever since high school I had been one of the special girls because of my grades; A’s were the source of my power, but A’s came from school and school would soon end. When it did, I would go from ‘God, she’s a brain,’ to ‘Hey, she’s a secretary,’ except I did not know shorthand. "