Rawlings Quotes & Sayings

That's why when I talk to younger comics, and they say, 'Well I need this and this, and I need so and so,' I tell them they don't need nothing. All you need is some great idea and go shoot it. — Donnell Rawlings

The best fish in the world are of course those one catches oneself. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Now he understood. This was death. Death was a silence that gave back no answer. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Well, son, you cain't go thru life chunkin' things at all the ugly women you meet. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Good God, with a bounty
Look down on Marion County,
For the soil is so pore, and so awful rooty, too,
I don't know what to God the pore folks gonna do. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

My father-in-law, Barney Rawlings, spent a couple of months hiding out in France in 1944, frantically memorizing a few French words to pass himself off as a Frenchman, but his ordeal had not inspired in me any action until I started taking a French class. — Bobbie Ann Mason

No, I most certainly do not think advertising people are wonderful. I think they are horrible, and the worst menace to mankind, next to war; perhaps ahead of war. They stand for the material viewpoint, for the importance of possessions, of desire, of envy, of greed. And war comes from these things. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

A kid asked me for advise about getting into entertainment? I said you better know how to be happy being broke! — Donnell Rawlings

Men had reached into the scrub and along its boundaries, had snatched what they could get and had gone away, uneasy in that vast indifferent peace; for a man was nothing, crawling ant-like among the myrtle bushes under the pines. Now they were gone, it was as though they had never been. The silence of the scrub was primordial. The wood-thrush crying across it might have been the first bird in the world - or the last. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Garlic, like perfume, must be used with discretion and on the proper occasions. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Readers themselves, I think, contribute to a book. They add their own imaginations, and it is as though the writer only gave them something to work on, and they did the rest. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

I see no reason for denying so fundamental an urge, ruin or no. It is more important to live the life one wishes to live, and to go down with it if necessary, quite contentedly, than to live more profitably but less happily. Yet to achieve content under sometimes adverse circumstances, requires first an adjustment within oneself, and this I had already made, and after that, a recognition that one is not unique in being obliged to toil and struggle and suffer. This is the simplest of all facts and the most difficult for the individual ego to accept. As I look back on those first difficult times at the Creek, when it seemed as though the actual labor was more than I could bear, and the making of a living on the grove impossible, it was old black Martha who drew aside a curtain and led me in to the company of all those who had loved the Creek and been tormented by it. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

I just had a baby girl. My daughter weighed 27 pounds. She was 3 years old. She was delivered to me by way of the court system and a blood test. — Donnell Rawlings

Who owns Cross Creek? The red-birds, I think, more than I, for they will have their nests even in the face of delinquent mortgages..It seems to me that the earth may be borrowed, but not bought. It may be used, but not owned. It gives itself in response to love and tending, offers its sesonal flowering and fruiting. But we are tenants and not possessors, lovers, and not masters. Cross Creek belongs to the wind and the rain, to the sun and the seasons, to the cosmic secrecy of seed, and beyond all, to time ...
— Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

You kin tame arything, son, excusin' the human tongue. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

People have a right to their opinion. — Stephanie Rawlings-Blake

He wrote:
Dear ollever; yor ol twinkk has dun gode up the rivver. im gladd. yor friend jody. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Tiger Woods is a billionaire. Do you know how much ass you can get with a billion dollars? I know guys with $20 and a pack of Newports who'd try to screw your whole neighborhood. — Donnell Rawlings

I'll walk off the rest of my mad. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

The best thing about where comedy is now is if you have a little bit of talent and a strong work ethic, and strong social skills, you can make a name for yourself and you can make money. — Donnell Rawlings

Magic birds were dancing in the mystic marsh. The grass swayed with them, and the shallow waters, and the earth fluttered under them. The earth was dancing with the cranes, and the low sun, and the wind and sky. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Lives are only one with living. How dare we, in our egos, claim catastrophe in the rise and fall of the individual entity? There is only Life, and we are beads strung on its strong and endless thread. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Somewhere beyond the sink-hole, past the magnolia, under the live oaks, a boy and a yearling ran side by side, and were gone forever. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

I can only tell you that when long soul-searching and a combination of circumstances delivered me of my last prejudices, there was an exalted sense of liberation. It was not the Negro who became free, but I. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

He watched the sun rise beyond the grape arbor. In the thin golden light the young leaves and tendrils of the Scuppernong were like Twink Weatherby's hair. He decided that sunrise and sunset both gave him a pleasantly sad feeling. The sunrise brought a wild, free sadness; the sunset, a lonely yet a comforting one. He indulged his agreeable melancholy until the earth under him turned from gray to lavender and then to the color dried corn husks. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

He lay down beside the fawn. He put one arm across its neck. It did not seem to him that he could ever be lonely again. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

A pie so delicate, so luscious, that I hope to be propped up on my dying bed and fed a generous portion. Then I think that I should refuse outright to die, for life would be too good to relinquish. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Personal publicity is apt to be dangerous to any writer's integrity; for the moment he begins to fancy himself as quite a person, a taint creeps into his work. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Madness is only a variety of mental nonconformity and we are all individualists here. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Claire, I don't want to lose that look. I promise, I'll never demand it again ... I don't want that. I want what I have today. I'm concerned that, when all my confessions are out - it'll be gone.
Anthony — Aleatha Romig

Rise and grind ... the money ain't gonna wait for you while you sleep son. — Donnell Rawlings

When I started off in DC, you didn't get viral first. You got funny first. — Donnell Rawlings

The truth is artistically fallacious. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

A woman never forgets the men she could have had; a man, the women he couldn't — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Hemingway, damn his soul, makes everything he writes terrifically exciting (and incidentally makes all us second-raters seem positively adolescent) by the seemingly simple expedient of the iceberg principle - three-fourths of the substance under the surface. He comes closer that way to retaining the magic of the original, unexpressed idea or emotion, which is always more stirring than any words. But just try and do it! — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Ants in the house seem to be, not intruders, but the owners. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

It is not death that kills us, but life. We are done to death by life. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

The ocean breeze returned, stinging his eyes, causing moisture to pool. He blinked it away before Claire could see, because ... Anthony Rawlings didn't apologize and he didn't cry ... that's the truth. — Aleatha Romig

This was wrong. Tony didn't want to have feelings. The sex was great. It was okay to want her, dominate her, and control her. It was not okay to want to be with her, please her, and love her. Yet every one of his senses desired Claire. — Aleatha Romig

He set down the milk pails to rest and stared at the bright house. This was a man's great joy, to come at nightfall after his day's work to a lighted house. . . . and his beloved was waiting for him with food and warmth and comfort. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

When a wave of love takes over a human being ... such an exaltation takes him that he knows he has put his finger on the pulse of the great secret and the great answer. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

This, then, was hunger. This was what his mother had meant when she had said, "We'll all go hongry." He had laughed, for he had thought he had known hunger, and it was faintly pleasant. He knew now that it had been only appetite. This was another thing. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

My life hasn't been perfect, yet I've never wasted my time envying anyone else. If something wasn't the best it could be - I made it better. — Aleatha Romig

God help me, I do care about you. Gently hugging her against his chest, he tenderly moved her hair away from her angelic face. Seeing her sleep, peaceful and trusting, his thoughts of waking
her for his desires were quickly replaced. — Aleatha Romig

If the rest of my life were anything like the last couple of days, then that new skill might be the only thing keeping me out of traction. Back — Rachel Rawlings

I'm not throwing you away! I'm setting you free. — Aleatha Romig

No matterwhat he did to make Claire's life better or show her he'd changed, these memories would always linger in the recesses of his mind. For the rest of his life, he'd know what he'd done. Tony hated himself for all of it - hell, he always had the end justifies the means argument, but even he didn't believe that anymore. Not now. Not now that he knew Claire and loved Claire. — Aleatha Romig

I went to Annapolis for tougher laws to hold cops accountable. I'm fighting to bring back the trust between the police and the community. — Stephanie Rawlings-Blake

The wild animals seemed less predatory to him than people he had known. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Challenge yourself with something you know you could never do, and what you'll find is that you can overcome anything son. — Donnell Rawlings

Don't go gittin faintified on me. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

People in general are totally unable to detach the personality of a writer from the products of his thinking. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Two elements enter into successful and happy gatherings at table. The food, whether simple or elaborate, must be carefully prepared; willingly prepared; imaginatively prepared. And the guests - friends, family or strangers - must be conscious of their welcome. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

He recognized the difference in her touch.
Looking down into her green eyes, he said, "I need to keep working."
"No, Claire, I need to keep working to be a man you are proud to be married to. — Aleatha Romig

Now, having left cities behind me, turned
Away forever from the strange, gregarious
Huddling of men by stones, I find those various
Great towns I knew fused into one, burned
Together in the fire of my despising ... — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

They were all too tightly bound together, men and women, creatures wild and tame, flowers, fruits and leaves, to ask that any one be spared. As long as the whole continued, the earth could go about its business. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Unlike the stiffness of rheumatoid arthritis, the pain from fibromyalgia typically doesn't diminish with activity, and the pain is made worse by cold, damp weather, overexertion, anxiety, or stress. — Deirdre Rawlings

Life is a difficult matter, and the more a simple man may learn of what greater men have thought, and taught, have spoken and have written, the better can he cope with any sort of life. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

But only a leper shows its sins to the world. — Alan Rawlings

His father had never planted an orchard. No growing thing was graceless, but that scowling, snarling man, Hiram Linden, had seemed purposely to avoid all crops that flowered in beauty. All were utilitarian, sown with surliness and harvested with oaths. Ase was the first Linden of three generations to consider the earth and its bounty with reverence and affection, to long to adorn it as best he might during his tenure. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

A wish, a dream, a miracle - Whatever it is, it's real. — Aleatha Romig

The better alternative to fighting a guy, go have sex with his girlfriend. That's how you knock a dude out! — Donnell Rawlings

She put her arms around his waist and looked up at his face. "I did? What did I take?"
He bent down to kiss her. She stood to meet
him halfway. His lips softly touched her lips and her neck as his hands became tangled in her hair.
"I believe it was my heart. — Aleatha Romig

But to make the intangible tangible, to pick the emotion out of the air and make it true for others, is both the blessing and the curse of the writer, for the thing between book covers is never as beautiful as the thing he imagined. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Life is strong stuff, some of us can bear more of it than others. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

No case of libel by a negro against a white would even reach a southern court. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

A dead tree, falling, made less havoc than a live one. It seemed as though a live tree went down fighting, like an animal. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Tiger Woods is stupid; not for cheating, but for having one cell phone. What type of player you know has one cell phone? — Donnell Rawlings

That very aggressive, unapologetic leadership style is needed in Washington, D.C., and I'm not afraid to tackle big issues. — Stephanie Rawlings-Blake

Lifting his head to gently kiss her lips, he whispered, "I trust you." Then he covered his own eyes with her satin mask. — Aleatha Romig

You've seed how things goes in the world o' men. You've knowed men to be low-down and mean. You've seed ol' Death at his tricks ... Ever' man wants life to be a fine thing, and a easy. 'Tis fine, boy, powerful fine, but 'tain't easy. Life knocks a man down and he gits up and it knocks him down agin. I've been uneasy all my life ... I've wanted life to be easy for you. Easier'n 'twas for me. A man's heart aches, seein' his young uns face the world. Knowin' they got to get their guts tore out, the way his was tore. I wanted to spare you, long as I could. I wanted you to frolic with your yearlin'. I knowed the lonesomeness he eased for you. But ever' man's lonesome. What's he to do then? What's he to do when he gits knocked down? Why, take it for his share and go on.
- Penny Baxter — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Yet it was . . . Asahel who knew those books secretly by heart, and read, as laboriously as he did everything else, any scrap of paper with printing on it, poring hungrily over the magic of words. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Information can be passed from one to another, like a silver dollar. There's absolutely no wisdom except what you learn for yourself. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Living was no longer the grief behind him, but the anxiety ahead. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Jody said, "Ma, you're shore good."
"Oh, yes. When it's rations."
"Well, I'd a heap ruther you was good about rations and mean about other things."
"Oh, I be mean, be I?"
"Only about jest a very few things," he soothed her. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

The worst things I knows of is rattlesnakes and some kinds o' people. And a rattlesnake minds his own matters if he ain't bothered. A man's got a right to kill ary thing, snake or man, comes messin' up with him. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Sift each of us through the great sieve of circumstance and you have a residue, great or small as the case may be, that is the man or the woman. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

It's very important to be just to other people. It takes years and years of living to learn that injustice against oneself is always unimportant. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

I have made some bad decisions ... and done some things I regret in my life ... but without a doubt ... what I regret the most ... is divorcing you. If you tell me there is hope, that one day you'll be Mrs. Rawlings again, I will wait. — Aleatha Romig

She lives a sophisticate's life among worldly people. At the slightest excuse she steps out of civilization, naked and relieved, as I should step out of a soiled chemise. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Pull the trigger. — Troy Rawlings

No man should have proprietary rights over land who does not use that land wisely and lovingly. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Mr. Rawlings is a man of his word. The problem was, he made two different promises and he felt honored to keep them both. He hoped that by fulfilling one, in a different than expected way, he may have the chance to rectify the other. — Aleatha Romig

Public life, politics and industry should all of them be within our sphere of influence ... If we are to infiltrate the professional and social activities of other people I think we must imitate the Totalitarians and organize some kind of fifth column activity! If better ideas on mental health are to progress and spread we, as the salesmen, must lose our identity ... Let us all, therefore, very secretly be 'fifth columnists.' — John Rawlings Rees

Mr Anthony Rawlings had a lesson to learn and Claire claimed the role as teacher. — Aleatha Romig

Perhaps all men were moved against their will. A man ordered his life, and then an obscurity of circumstance sent him down a road that was not of his own desire or choosing. Something beyond a man's immediate choice and will reached through the earth and stirred him. He did not see how any man might escape it. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

As the tears coated his cheeks, he told himself, Anthony Rawlings doesn't cry. He doesn't apologize, and he doesn't — Aleatha Romig

Live life to the fullest everyday, 'cause we never know what day will be our last. — Donnell Rawlings

I understand the frustration of the community, i want citizens to know exactly how it happened, and if necessary, I will ensure that we hold the right people accountable. — Stephanie Rawlings-Blake

To Be Young (is to be sad, is to be high) — David Rawlings

She was not unattractive until she focused her eyes on a human being, when their unblinking coldness gave the effect of the stare of an adder. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Words began fights and words ended them. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

It is my conviction that the personality of the writer has nothing to do with the literate product of his mind. And publicity in this case embarrasses me because I am acutely conscious of how far short the book falls of the artistry I am struggling to achieve. It's like being caught half-dressed. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

He edged closer to his father's bones and sinews. Penny slipped an arm around him and he lay close against the lank thigh. His father was the core of safety. His father swam the swift creek to fetch back his wounded dog. The clearing was safe, and his father fought for it, and for his own. A sense of snugness came over him and he dropped asleep. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Good" is what helps us or at least does not hinder. "Evil" is whatever harms us or interferes with us, according to our own selfish standards. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

(The city is being) destroyed by thugs who in a very senseless way are trying to tear down what so many have fought for, tearing down businesses, tearing down or destroying property, things that we know will impact our community for years. — Stephanie Rawlings-Blake

He was addled with April. He was dizzy with Spring. He was as drunk as Lem Forrester on a Saturday night. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

I don't doubt you can handle it; you've
handled so much. You've always been so strong. It's what - "
"I know - it's what infuriated you about me."
He squeezed her hand. "Yes - and it's
what made me fall in love with you. — Aleatha Romig

Their journey wasn't complete. If their
relationship had been a poker tournament, unquestionably, they'd not been dealt the best cards. When faced with the same odds, as Tony and Claire, many players would have folded and walked away. They hadn't - they'd continued to play. In the process they'd grown and changed. At one time, they were opponents, strategizing against one another, now they were teammates, yet their tournament wasn't over. It was too early to declare the winner. They both knew there were more cards to be revealed. — Aleatha Romig

Marry me, Esme. Please. Honor me. I will honor you as your husband never did. Our marriage would be a remedy against sin, if anyone could ever call it a sin to love you.
Sebastian Bonnington to Esme Rawlings — Eloisa James