Quotes from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“Rule number one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
― John Berendt, quote from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“If you go to Atlanta, the first question people ask you is, "What's your business?" In Macon they ask, "Where do you go to church?" In Augusta they ask your grandmother's maiden name. But in Savannah the first question people ask you is "What would you like to drink?”
― John Berendt, quote from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“Two tears in a bucket. Motherfuck it.”
― John Berendt, quote from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“By morning she was dead. She had not died of starvation or committed suicide by any conventional means. She had simply willed herself to die, and being a strong-willed woman, she had succeeded. She had missed dying on her birthday by two days.”
― John Berendt, quote from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“Someone once wrote that musicians are touched on the shoulder by God, and I think it's true. You can make other people happy with music, but you can make yourself happy too. Because of my music, I have never known loneliness and never been depressed.”
― John Berendt, quote from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“She was a marvel. She did exactly as she pleased all her life, God bless her.”
― John Berendt, quote from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“But I never think about dead people. Looking at these old graves makes me think how generation after generation of the same family are all gathered together. And that makes me think about how life goes on, but not about dying. I never think about dying.”
― John Berendt, quote from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“For me, Savannah's resistance to change was its saving grace. The city looked inward, sealed off from the noises and distractions of the world at large. It grew inward, too, and in such a way that its people flourished like hothouse plants tended by an indulgent gardener. The ordinary became extraordinary. Eccentrics thrived. Every nuance and quirk of personality achieved greater brilliance in that lush enclosure than would have been possible anywhere else in the world.”
― John Berendt, quote from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“Never spend any of your hard-earned money on clothes and accessories. You need to get yourself a mayyin to buy all that for you.”
― John Berendt, quote from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“Black magic never stops. What goes from you comes to you. Once you start this shit, you gotta keep it up. Just like the utility bill. Just like the grocery store. Or they kill you. You got to keep it up. Two, five, ten, twenty years.”
― John Berendt, quote from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“The South is one big drag show, honey [...].”
― John Berendt, quote from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“If there’s a single trait common to all Savannahians, it’s their love of money and their unwillingness to spend it.”
― John Berendt, quote from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“Sometimes I just can't face going through with breakfast.”
― John Berendt, quote from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“We have a saying: If you go to Atlanta, the first question people ask you is, ‘What’s your business?’ In Macon they ask, ‘Where do you go to church?’ In Augusta they ask your grandmother’s maiden name. But in Savannah the first question people ask you is ‘What would you like to drink?”
― John Berendt, quote from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“There being no direct route to Savannah from Charleston, I followed a zigzagging course that took me through the tidal flatlands of the South Carolina low country. As I approached Savannah, the road narrowed to a two-lane blacktop shaded by tall trees. There was an occasional produce stand by the side of the road and a few cottages set into the foliage, but nothing resembling urban sprawl. The voice on the radio informed me that I had entered a zone called the Coastal Empire.”
― John Berendt, quote from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“[Quoting Miss Harty:]

"People come here from all over the country and fall in love with Savannah. Then they move here and pretty soon they’re telling us how much more lively and prosperous Savannah could be if we only knew what we had and how to take advantage of it. I call these people ‘Gucci carpetbaggers.”
― John Berendt, quote from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“because it’s my job. It’s how I make my living. And I’ll tell you somethin’ else: It’s damn hard work bein’ a girl full”
― John Berendt, quote from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“Jim Williams’s guilt or innocence is no longer the issue,” he said. “Spencer Lawton’s incompetence is the issue.”
― John Berendt, quote from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“more drink. That’s when things happen. That’s when you find out everything you want to know.”
― John Berendt, quote from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“the doorbell rang again, and there was Mrs. Onassis and her friend Maurice”
― John Berendt, quote from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“If you did not like the show, honey, my name is Nancy Reagan and go fuck yourself.” Chablis”
― John Berendt, quote from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“Whitney had carefully kept the cotton gin under wraps while he applied for a patent, but he made a tactical error when he allowed women to have a look at it,”
― John Berendt, quote from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“Don’t you feel cut off?” I asked. “Cut off from what?” she replied. “No, on the whole I’d say we rather enjoy our separateness.”
― John Berendt, quote from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“How do you do that?” I asked. “What do witches eat?” “Witches loves pork meat,” she said. “They loves rice and potatoes. They loves black-eyed peas and cornbread. Lima beans, too, and collard greens and cabbage, all cooked in pork fat. Witches is old folks, most of them. They don’t care none for low-cal. You pile that food on a paper plate, stick a plastic fork in it, and set it down by the side of a tree. And that feeds the witches.” The”
― John Berendt, quote from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“Savannah was invariably gracious to strangers, but it was immune to their charms. It wanted nothing so much as to be left alone. Time”
― John Berendt, quote from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“Dr. Irving Stone of the Institute for Forensic Sciences in Dallas. He’s the guy who analyzed the clothing worn by President Kennedy and Governor Connally for the congressional committee that reexamined the Kennedy assassination.”
― John Berendt, quote from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“saying, I originally left the door unlocked as a matter of convenience. But pretty soon I realized that whenever the doorbell did ring, it was someone I didn’t know. So the bell became a signal that a stranger was at the door. I’ve learned never to answer it myself when that happens, because it’s likely to be a deputy sheriff wanting to serve me with some kind of paper, and of course I don’t need to be home for that.”
― John Berendt, quote from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“According to the National Institute of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse, more than 8 percent of Savannah’s adults were “known alcoholics,”
― John Berendt, quote from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“We’re not at all like the rest of Georgia. We have a saying: If you go to Atlanta, the first question people ask you is, ‘What’s your business?’ In Macon they ask, ‘Where do you go to church?’ In Augusta they ask your grandmother’s maiden name. But in Savannah the first question people ask you is ‘What would you like to drink?”
― John Berendt, quote from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“lay loooo-yah! A-layyyy-loo yah!” He had abandoned his tenor and was singing in a wavering falsetto.”
― John Berendt, quote from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

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Popular quotes

“Decebel looked over at Fane. "A face tu fiecare a lua ce ei say?(Do you ever get what they say?)"
Fane smiled at his Beta. "Nu mai incerce sa, (No longer try)."
"Good call." Decebel nodded.
Jen looked over at Decebel, her eyes narrowing. "No talking in foreign tongue when around the Americans."
Decebel leaned towards her, the gleam in his eyes causing Jen to tremble. "But Jennifer, I thought you spoke Romanian." He looked around at Sally and Jacque. "Weren't you two under the impression that she spoke Romanian?"
Jacque and Sally nodded despite the daggers Jen was staring their way.
"That was thoroughly impressed upon us, wouldn't you say, Sally?" Jacque turned to look at her.
"Wait. Uh yeah, I distinctly remember a bar...vodka...and I'm almost positive Jen speaking in Romanian to the hot bartender."
Sally was grinning from ear to ear as Jen's face grew red.
"I hope you two aren't attached to your undergarments because I just got the sudden urge to have a bonfire," Jen growled out.
"Note to self: hide underwear."
"Or you could just solve that problem by not wearing any." Jacque heard Fane's voice through their bond. Her jaw dropped open and her face turned bright red as she turned to look at her mate.
Jen looked at Sally. "Looks like Fane had a suggestion about the princess' undergarments. If I had my guess, I'd say he told her I couldn't burn them if she didn't own any."
If Jacque could've turned any redder she would have. "How? What..." Jacque stuttered as she looked at her blonde friend, trying to figure out how she knew what Fane had been thinking.
"It's a gift, Watson. But really what it boils down to is when it comes to chicks and underwear, guys will always say they don't mix."
Decebel coughed as he choked on his laughter while Fane had buried his face in Jacque's back, his shoulders shaking. Jacque and Sally both looked at their friend with open mouths.”
― Quinn Loftis, quote from Just One Drop

“I was stupid, the official descriptive phrase for happy.”
― Daniel Handler, quote from Why We Broke Up

“ينبغي أن يوارب المرء في حديثه مع القضاة والسلاطين، لا مع الخالق. الله أكبر، وليس له في مجاملاتنا وانحناءاتنا. لقد خلقني متفكرًا، وعليه فإنني أتفكر وأقدّم بين يديه ثمرة تفكيري جِهارًا.”
― Amin Maalouf, quote from Samarkand

“If she were here I wouldn't be able to keep my hands off her. I would hold her so close she'd beg me to let her breathe. I'd kiss her so hard she'd plead for mercy. I'd unfasten her clothing and lie with her on that hard bed, and what was between us would be as far above the ordinary congress between man and woman as the stars are above their pale reflections in the lake below.”
― Juliet Marillier, quote from Heir to Sevenwaters

“God's definition of what matters is pretty straightforward. He measures our lives by how we love.”
― Francis Chan, quote from Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God

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