Fannie Flagg Quotes & Sayings

Yes, I suffer terribly from depression. I have to work at being happy, it's not my natural instinct. My natural instinct is, if something wonderful happens, to throw water in my own face. — Fannie Flagg

I love your stories. Tell me a story, Idgie. Go on, you old bee charmer. Tell me a good tall tale. Tell me the one about the lake. ~Ruth Jamison — Fannie Flagg

The food in the South is as important as food anywhere because it defines a person's culture. — Fannie Flagg

They gave Saint Patrick his own day and what did he do but run out a bunch of snakes. Why, Thomas Edison lit up the world. If it hadn't been for him we'd all still be sitting here in the dark, with nothing but a candle, — Fannie Flagg

By the way, Boots died and Opal says she hopes you're satisfied. — Fannie Flagg

All those calm, adult discussions. When all she really wanted to do was scream for her momma, her sweet momma, the one person in the world who loved her better than anyone ever would or ever could. — Fannie Flagg

...Rejoice for a comrade deceased,
Our loss is his infinite gain,
A soul out of prison released,
And free from its bodily chain."
~Smokey Lonesome — Fannie Flagg

One gal drank a can of floor wax and topped it off with a cup of Clorox, trying to separate herself from the same world he was in. — Fannie Flagg

In 1945, when the male soldiers started coming back home from Europe, she and all the other women pilots that had served as WASPs during the war were unceremoniously told to go home and never received a dime or even thanks from the government. — Fannie Flagg

The little girl knew if she bit any member of her family, they would get rabies too, and she died without ever having been petted. I cried so hard Mrs. Underwood had to take me to the school nurse. — Fannie Flagg

But you soon find out they don't want to meet you, they want you to meet them. — Fannie Flagg

I hate a book that jumps around. Also I can promise — Fannie Flagg

I just know there's an albino living in the colored quarters. I can feel it in my bones. — Fannie Flagg

raging across Europe. Every night, families sat glued to the radio, listening to the news of Poland. Most still had relatives — Fannie Flagg

After the boy at the supermarket had called her those names, Evelyn Couch had felt violated. Raped by words. Stripped of Everything. — Fannie Flagg

Susie, the Weight Watchers leader, helped herself to a second helping of the sweet potatoes with the marshmallows on top, — Fannie Flagg

Well, they are trying to get rid of Christianity and once they do that, then you watch. Our taxes will go up and they'll take all our guns away and the next thing you know, a communist or a socialist will get in the White House and then it will be all over. — Fannie Flagg

If you do everything in your power to avoid writing and still can't, then you must be a writer. — Fannie Flagg

Strangely enough, the first character in Fried Green Tomatoes was the cafe, and the town. I think a place can be as much a character in a novel as the people. — Fannie Flagg

I was sitting on the roof, and she didn't see me. I sit on the roof a lot. People never think to look up. — Fannie Flagg

He had been told that in America, if you worked hard, anything was possible. — Fannie Flagg

I wonder how many people don't get the one they want, but end up with the one they're supposed to be with. — Fannie Flagg

Her daughter had given her a puff of a marijuana cigarette once, but after all the hot pads on the counter started walking toward her, she got scared and never tried it again. So dope was out. — Fannie Flagg

You're just a bee charmer, Idgie Threadgoode. That's what you are, a bee charmer. — Fannie Flagg

Your mother formed an incorrect opinion of you and, naturally, you agreed with her. Children always think their parents are right. But in this case, your mother was entirely wrong. Think about it. Your mother is an overpowering individual, — Fannie Flagg

The line between the public life and the private life has been erased, due to the rapid decline of manners and courtesy. There is a certain crudeness and crassness that has suddenly become accepted behavior, even desirable. — Fannie Flagg

I thought I was going to die right there on the spot. I've never heard anything so terrible in my whole life. I hope she is wrong and I never get a period. I am eleven years old and entirely too young to hear about it. Can you imagine my mother not knowing what Kotex are for and dusting the house with them? Well, her mother can just tell her what they are for. I'm not getting into the facts of life. I haven't heard one fact of life I like yet. — Fannie Flagg

Face it girls. I'm older and I have more insurance. — Fannie Flagg

When she finally was able to order a martini, the first sip nearly knocked her head off. It was so strong. And how surprised she was that scotch tasted more like iodine than butterscotch candy. Two of the great disappointments in her life. — Fannie Flagg

You know, a heart can be broken, but it still keeps a-beating just the same. — Fannie Flagg

People cain't help being what they are any more than a skunk can help being a skunk. Don't you think if they had their choice they would rather be something else? Sure they would. People are just weak. — Fannie Flagg

In order to be Miss Anybody you had to have excellent grades, and I had terrible grades because of my dyslexia. — Fannie Flagg

In her opinion, Alexander Graham Bell and Clarence Birdseye are the two greatest Americans that ever lived excluding Robert E. Lee. She believes we never lost the War Between the States, that General Lee thought General Grant was the butler and just naturally handed him his sword. — Fannie Flagg

The ones that hurt the most always say the least. — Fannie Flagg

Oh it don't make no kind of sense. Big ol' ox like Grady won't sit next to a colored child. But he eats eggs- shoot right outta chicken's ass! — Fannie Flagg

I brought a picture with me that I had at home, of a girl in a swing with a castle and pretty blue bubbles in the background, to hang in my room, but that nurse here said the girl was naked from the waist up and not appropriate. You know, I've had that picture for fifty years and I never knew she was naked. If you ask me, I don't think the old men they've got here can see well enough to notice that she's bare-breasted. But, this is a Methodist home, so she's in the closet with my gallstones. — Fannie Flagg

And now i know i'm not myself. how can i ever be myself again? i was never myself in the first place! — Fannie Flagg

They say the truth can set you free, but sometimes it can really depress the hell out of you. — Fannie Flagg

After Elner Shimfissle accidentally poked that wasps' nest up in her fig tree, the last thing she remembered was thinking "Uh-oh. — Fannie Flagg

It was a stretch to imagine that Barbara Walters might want to give it all up for Ed Couch, but Evelyn tried her hardest. Of course, even though she was not religious, it was a comfort to know that the Bible backed her up in being a doormat. — Fannie Flagg

You know, a heart can be broken, but it keeps on beating, just the same. — Fannie Flagg

On every door the management had placed a photograph of the person so they could find their room. As he went by he saw face after face of someone who used to be young. — Fannie Flagg

your camellias are holding up — Fannie Flagg

Being a successful person is not necessarily defined by what you have achieved, but by what you have overcome. — Fannie Flagg

Marriage. Isn't it great? Each time you fall back in love with your [spouse] it gets better and better. — Fannie Flagg

Being an only child and losing both my parents at an early age, I have found that the friends I have made over the years are the people who help me get through life, good times and bad. — Fannie Flagg

So, Doc, will I be able to run the Boston Marathon again this year? — Fannie Flagg

Every time they have somebody born in the movies, it is a little boy. They never have little girls being born. What makes boys so great and woooonnnderfullll? I can do anything a boy can do — Fannie Flagg

There Lives More Faith in Honest Doubt,
Believe Me, Than Half the Creeds.
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson — Fannie Flagg

But in August 1945, Americans — Fannie Flagg

Don't give up before the miracle happens. — Fannie Flagg

I think that people that are not sensitive, who seem to bang through life, do survive, but I don't think they get the really soaring feelings that people who are more artistically bent can get. — Fannie Flagg

Seated in a car full of women, squashed between his six-foot landlady and Sybil Underwood, having to listen to them talk nonstop all the way to Atlanta and back, was too much for him to bear. — Fannie Flagg

People didn't call blacks names anymore, at least not to their faces. Italians weren't wops or dagos, and there were no more kikes, Japs, chinks, or spics in polite conversation. Everybody had a group to protest and stick up for them. But women were still being called names by men. Why? Where was our group? It's not fair. — Fannie Flagg

Just think, Ruth, I never did it for anybody else before. Now nobody in the whole world knows I can do that but you. I just wanted us to have a secret together, that's all. — Fannie Flagg

Mildred had had a few men friends after that, but she never really loved any of them. None could ever compete with the one that got away. — Fannie Flagg

Lenore had pushed her into had been a complete disaster. — Fannie Flagg

I have a lot of friends that are ex-Miss Alabamas and ex-Miss Georgias. — Fannie Flagg

That's what I'm living on now, honey, dreams, dreams of what I used to do. — Fannie Flagg

Albert and I would spend hours and hours looking at them. Cleo had this big magnifying glass on his desk, and we'd find centipedes and grasshoppers and beetles and potato bugs, ants ... and put them in a jar and look at them. They have the sweetest little faces and the cutest expressions. After we'd looked at them all we wanted to, we'd put them in the yard and let them go on about their business. — Fannie Flagg

There are magnificent beings on this earth, son, that are walking around posing as humans. — Fannie Flagg

You never know what's in a person's heart until they're tested, do you? — Fannie Flagg

No matter what you look like, there's somebody who's gonna think you're the handsomest man in the world. — Fannie Flagg

Women are fools; they will marry anything that has a heartbeat just to have a man. — Fannie Flagg

And Lenore had served each child several cups of the Simmons eggnog, which was 75 percent rum and 25 percent nog. When they came to pick the children up, all four were stumbling around her living room in a drunken stupor. — Fannie Flagg

When someone old dies, it is even sadder. First you notice that the paper doesn't come anymore, then gradually the lights are turned out, the gas turned off, the house gets locked up, and the yard is no longer kept up, then it goes on the market and new people come in and change everything. Elner — Fannie Flagg

I eat out of stress, she told Robbie, and now, between work and her nephews driving her crazy, she was just on the verge of having to switch from her MEDIUM to her FAT AS A HOG wardrobe again, which meant she was going to have to switch shoe sizes as well. Robbie said she was the only perwon in America who gained weight in her feet. — Fannie Flagg

Daddy gave me real useful information to protect me in the real world. If anyone hits me, I'm not to hit them back. I wait until their back is turned, then hit them in the head with a brick. — Fannie Flagg

as they walked home, and she would — Fannie Flagg

Mrs. Threadgoode laughed at the thought. Oh honey, I've buried my share, and each one hurt as bad as the last one. And there have been times when I've wondered why the good Lord handed me so many sorrowful burdens, to the point where I thought I just couldn't stand it one more day. But He only gives you what you can handle and no more ... and I'll tell you this: You cain't dwell on sadness, oh, it'll make you sick faster than anything in this world. — Fannie Flagg

Buddy, night and day. We even started calling her Cupid. Idgie was — Fannie Flagg

Damn, I'm Miss Mississippi! — Fannie Flagg

Remember, Sookie, nothing says more about a family than good silver and real pearls. The rest is just fluff. — Fannie Flagg

Hazel: Listen babe you have to search for your luck it's nice if it just falls in your lap but I look for my lucky pennies ...
Maggie: What do you do with all your pennies
Hazel: I give them away. It's good to spread your luck around and it always comes back to you. — Fannie Flagg

She had no interest in love. Love had taken her in the back room and beaten her up pretty badly. — Fannie Flagg

And so, as quietly as he had lived, he slipped out of town, leaving only a note behind:
Well, that's that. I'm off, and if you don't believe I'm leaving, just count the days I'm gone. When you hear the phone not ringing, it'll be me that's not calling. Goodbye, old girl, and good luck.
Yours truly,
Earl Adcock
P.S. I'm not deaf. — Fannie Flagg

Remember if people talk behind your back, it only means you are two steps ahead. — Fannie Flagg

All right, then, I'd die for you. How about that? Don't you think somebody could die for love? — Fannie Flagg

I believe in God, but I don't think you have to go crazy to prove it. — Fannie Flagg

He had mourned each of those great trains as, one by one, they were pulled off the lines and left to rust in some yard, like old aristocrats, fading away; antique relics of times gone by. — Fannie Flagg

Idgie smiled back at her and looked up into the clear blue sky that reflected in her eyes and she was as happy as anybody who is in love in the summertime can be. — Fannie Flagg

It's always the darkest just before the glorious dawn. — Fannie Flagg

Because any idiot can get married and have children; that's no great accomplishment. — Fannie Flagg

If you cage a wild thing, you can be sure it will die, but if you let it run free, nine times out of ten it will run back home. — Fannie Flagg

I believe poor people are good people, except the ones that are mean ... — Fannie Flagg

Like I say, it just creeps up on you. One day you're young and the next day your bosoms and your chin drops and you're wearing a rubber girdle. But you don't know you're old. — Fannie Flagg

Claude Pistal is a creep! He is lucky I'm reasonably mild-mannered like Clark Kent. — Fannie Flagg

Do you think that your worrying can prevent anything from happening? Whatever happens is supposed to happen and whatever doesn't, isn't. — Fannie Flagg

Churches were shut down and Stanislaw's father and three uncles had been sent to prison camps for speaking out. — Fannie Flagg

And her dumplings were so light they would float in the air and you'd have to catch 'em to eat 'em. — Fannie Flagg

You know, it's funny what you'll miss when you're away from home. Now me, I miss the smell of coffee ... and bacon frying in the morning. — Fannie Flagg

You think people are some kind of pure, white feathered birds flying in the clouds. They're not. They're pigs and they love to wallow in the mud and dirt. — Fannie Flagg

months was ten years. — Fannie Flagg

Remember, if people talk about you behind your back, it only means you are two steps ahead of them. — Fannie Flagg

Hazel always used to say There's not enough darkness in the entire universe to snuff out the light of just one little candle. — Fannie Flagg

If you did tell the truth or if you didn't, there were always consequences. Human interaction was difficult at best. — Fannie Flagg

As the doctor said, When a fifty-eight-year-old man goes downtown dressed up in a Dale Evans cowgirl outfit, complete with a skirt with fringe, it's time ... — Fannie Flagg

Evelyn stared into the empty ice cream carton and wondered where the smiling girl in the school pictures had gone. — Fannie Flagg

I found out I got ringworm from Felix. If it gets in my head, they will have to shave off my hair. I'll be bald just like Eisenhower, and I am a Democrat. — Fannie Flagg

Whom the heart first loves does not know or care if they are related by blood. — Fannie Flagg