Texas But Quotes & Sayings

And that was the way it was in the old days before the country grew up and men put their guns away. Someday, and I hope it never comes, there may be a time when the Western hills are empty again and the land will go back to wilderness and the old, hard ways. Enemies may come into our country and times will have changed, but then the boys will come down from the old high hills and belt on their guns again. They can do it if they have to. The guns are hung up, the cows roam fat and lazy, but the old spirit is still there, just as it was when the longhorns came up the trail from Texas, and the boys washed the creeks for gold. — Louis L'Amour

His eyes are cold and restless
His wounds have almost healed
And she'd give half of Texas
Just to change the way he feels
She knows his love's in Tulsa
And she knows he's gonna go
Well it ain't no woman flesh and blood
It's that damned old rodeo


Well it's bulls and blood
It's dust and mud
It's the roar of a Sunday crowd
It's the white in his knuckles
The gold in the buckle
He'll win the next go 'round
It's boots and chaps
It's cowboy hats
It's spurs and latigo
It's the ropes and the reins
And the joy and the pain
And they call the thing rodeo


She does her best to hold him
When his love comes to call
But his need for it controls him
And her back's against the wall
And it's So long girl I'll see you
When it's time for him to go
You know the woman wants her cowboy
Like he wants his rodeo — Garth Brooks

If you ask me the man's short a hat size or two but he's harmless. Not like the Texas Kid or the Tuscon Kid. Drat, he's not even like Billy the Kid. Now those are outlaws.
His assurances did little to calm her nerves. Apparently the only bandits he took seriously were the ones belonging to a society of human goats. — Margaret Brownley

I suppose if I look on the bright side of things, this means that I can train you to do things the way I like them. But right now, I have a hard-on the size of Texas and I'm not exactly thrilled about it. — C.L. Parker

Oh, it doesn't work at all. That's the problem! It's an endless, halting parade of inspections, bribes, and nonsense - but if you're aboard a Texas vessel, you'll find less inconvenience along the way."
"It's because of their guns!" declared Mr. Henderson, once more escaping his reverie, bobbing out of it as if to gasp for air.
"Concise, my love." Mrs. Henderson gave him a smile. "And correct. Texans are heavily armed and often impatient. They don't need to be transporting arms and gunpowder to create a great nuisance for anyone who stops them, so they tend to be stopped ... less often. — Cherie Priest

I don't know what the future of my career holds, but I know that whatever is over the horizon, the road I've traveled to get here is like those Interstates in Texas: everything can look the same, and it can feel like you're not going anywhere, until you suddenly get where you're going and realize that you've been traveling for a long time. — Wil Wheaton

While the Texas prison officials remained in the dark about what was going on, they were fortunate that William and Danny had benign motives. Imagine what havoc the two might have caused; it would have been child's play for these guys to develop a scheme for obtaining money or property from unsuspecting victims. The Internet had become their university and playground. Learning how to run scams against individuals or break in to corporate sites would have been a cinch; teenagers and preteens learn these methods every day from the hacker sites and elsewhere on the Web. And as prisoners, Danny and William had all the time in the world.

Maybe there's a lesson here: Two convicted murderers, but that didn't mean they were scum, rotten to the core. They were cheaters who hacked their way onto the Internet illegally, but that didn't mean they were willing to victimize innocent people or naively insecure companies. — Kevin D. Mitnick

When I initially met with Robert I was just so excited to meet the guy. I was able to go to Troublemaker Studios in Austin, Texas and just hanging out was fantastic. Working on this took up all of my weekends while I was shooting Community. It was crazy, but again, no regrets. — Joel McHale

Certainly there was the Affordable Care Act part, then unaccompanied children [there has been a surge of children entering the country illegally and without parents, particularly in Texas], and things like, we find smallpox in an NIH lab, after 50 years? Why didn't you find it, like, five weeks ago or three years ago? There was thing after thing. But the big ones were [dealing with] the Ebola [outbreak], the unaccompanied children. [It was] perhaps a bigger challenge than I had calculated on my yellow pad as I was thinking about this role. — Sylvia Mathews Burwell

In the late 19th century there was a major union organization, Knights of Labor, and also a radical populist movement based on farmers. It's hard to believe, but it was based in Texas, and it was quite radical. They wanted their own banks, their own cooperatives, their own control over sales and commerce. — Noam Chomsky

The rest of the family tree had a root system soggy with alcohol ... One aunt had fallen asleep with her face in the mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving dinner; another's fondness for Coors was so unwavering that I can still remember the musky smell of the beer and the coldness of the cans. Most of the men drank the way all Texas men drank, or so I believed, which meant that they were tough guys who could hold their liquor until they couldn't anymore
a capacity that often led to some cloudy version of doom, be it financial ruin or suicide or the lesser betrayal of simple estrangement. Both social drinkers, my parents had eluded these tragic endings; in the postwar Texas of suburbs and cocktails, their drinking was routine but undramatic. — Gail Caldwell

Texans for Public Justice, an anti-corruption group based in Texas applauded the indictment. No jury can undo the outcome of Texas 2002 elections, ... but the justice system must punish those who criminally conspire to undermine democracy no matter how powerful they may be. If we are to be a democracy, then powerful politicians cannot flout such laws with impunity. — Craig McDonald

It is so basic as to be mundane, but in disaster relief, all the good will in the world can go to hell in a hand basket if the logistics don't work. In Ethiopia at the best of times, the logistics are difficult. It is a huge country - about the same size as Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma combined. It is also a transportation nightmare. — William Shawcross

I always had that adolescent notion that I had to get out of Texas. But I'm really glad I grew up there. It's where I learned to look people in the eye, to be straightforward and polite. — Sarah Shahi

There's a great scene in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre [1974] that I'm obsessed with: Sally is being chased by Leatherface with a chainsaw. And she runs into thorn bushes. And she's getting tangled up in it because she's running fast. But Sally needs to move slowly in order to get through the bushes - she will get farther faster by going slowly because her hair and clothes won't get tangled and caught. There's something really beautiful about understanding that, while someone's chasing you with a chainsaw, you have to move more slowly in order to get away. — Christopher Bollen

Although I grew up in Kansas City, ... I have always kept more or less au courant of Texas barbecue, like a sports fan who is almost monomaniacally obsessed with basketball but glances over at the N.H.L. standings now and then. — Calvin Trillin

I work in my office on the campus of the University of Texas. It's the sort of place described as 'book-lined', but it's recently tipped over into 'fire-hazard' territory. — Elizabeth McCracken

Joaquin Jackson's frank and colorful account of his long career as a modern-day Texas Ranger thrills like an action novel, yet the stories are true, sometimes funny, sometimes tragic, but always gripping. I could hardly put the book down ... The writing is superb. — Elmer Kelton

Thomas is 'crazy as a sprayed roach' when you make him mad, but he has a heart as big as Texas too. — Christina Mobley

I never go to weddings. Waste of time. Person can get married a dozen times. Lots of folks do. Family like ours, know everybody in the state of Texas and around outside, why, you could spend your life going to weddings. But a funeral, that's different. You only die once. — Edna Ferber

She was a former Texan - proud, loud and stubborn. But you can't really be a former Texan. You can only move out of Texas. To be a former Texan would be like growing up in Italy, moving out and being formerly Italian. — Jeffrey Michelson

Naturally, when it comes to voting, we in Texas are accustomed to discerning that fine hair's-breadth worth of difference that makes one hopeless dipstick slightly less awful than the other. But it does raise the question: Why bother? — Molly Ivins

JAKE BAKER JOINING THE UNION ARMY IN NEW ORLEANS
"I'd prefer to be back in Texas, taking aim at the Rebs ... , but I just can't do that," said Jake ... "So, I'll just do what I can do, I guess."
"I suspect that goes for all of us," said the Colonel. "Maybe we should make that the unit's motto. 'The First Texas Cavalry of the United States of America: We'll just do what we can do, we guess.' It does have a ring to it, but I expect that we need somethin' a bit more inspirational and less true. — Charles Phillips

Like most passionate nations, Texas has its own history based on, but not limited by, facts. — John Steinbeck

I get around OK with a toolbox. As a kid, I picked up skills following my dad through the oil fields of Oklahoma and West Texas. My wife Janine is hard to impress, but she does think it's cool when I fix things around the house. — Ronnie Dunn

Hello ... is this Mrs. Fritzi Bevins?'
'Yes, it is.'
'From Pulaski, Wisconsin?'
'Yes.'
'Uh ... you don't know me, but I recently received some papers. From Texas. And, well ... I think I might be your daughter?'
There was a long silence on the other end, and then after a moment, the woman in a softer voice said, 'Hiya, pal. I've been waiting for this call for a long time. — Fannie Flagg

We may be rats in a maze as far as the Obama administration is concerned, but in Texas, we are rats with a firm knowledge of just where the button is and how to push it. It helps us put up with all the nonsense and it would do the folks in Washington well to remember that. - Tom King ("Why the Secession Talk in Texas") — Tom King

Texas can make it without the United States, but the United States cannot make it without Texas — Sam Houston

He rolled her over, rising above her, cupping her cheek. "I wasn't lying, Loree. I've always heard the music in my heart ... but I lost the ability to do that when I went to prison. It was like the music just shriveled up and died. I thought I'd never hear it again. How could I play the violin if I couldn't hear the music? Then lately, I started going crazy because I'd hear snatches of music - when you'd look at me or smile at me. But I couldn't grab onto it, I couldn't hold it. Then last night, you told me that you loved me and I heard the music, so sweet, so soft. It scared me to hear it so clearly after I hadn't for so long.
"Tonight, I hurt you - again. I was going to let you go, Loree. I was gonna take you back to Austin. But I heard my heart break ... and I knew that's all I'd hear for the rest of my life. Don't leave me, Sugar."
Joy filled her and she brushed the locks of hair back off his brow. "I won't."
-Austin and Loree — Lorraine Heath

Is there one in particular, Tennyson?" Henry said, ducking out from under her arm. "I could arrange a meeting."
"Yeah, the one from Texas ... what's his name?"
"That would be Dylan. But he's a nice guy and you'd break his heart. He dropped out of Texas A&M to come up here and saddle bum around with my horses year-round. Knowing your dad, I think you'd better be looking for a pre-med honors student."
"Leave my dad out of this. — Laura Anderson Kurk

Yes, (Bush is a) racist. We all knew that but the world is only finding it out now. As Texas's governor, Bush led a penitentiary system that executed more people than all the other U.S. states together. And most of the people who died from (the) death penalty were Afro-Americans or Hispanics. (Bush) promoted a Conservative program, designed to eliminate everything Americans had accomplished so far in matters of race and equality. — Danny Glover

Safeco Field is a lot like a National League park. Because of that, we're more of a pitching-defensive type club. Anaheim and Oakland - and even Texas - are more offensive oriented. We're a club that doesn't blow anybody out, but at the same time we don't get blown out much. We're in most of the games. — Pat Gillick

The difference in working on a TV series and a movie comes down to one thing for me, and that is the travel. With 'The Bold and the Beautiful,' we are in one remote location, but with a movie, you get to travel, explore, and experience different things every day. But I've really enjoyed doing both. — Texas Battle

By 1899, we had learned to tame the darkness but not the Texas heat. — Jacqueline Kelly

The spirit of Texas seems to pervade our everyday existence. Our desire is to be superlative, not only the largest, but also the best in the United States. — Denton Cooley

I got used to birds: small black birds flying up from behind a building like God had tossed up a handful of currants, birds squalling in the parking lot of the grocery store (drowning the hum of industrial refrigerators), chachalacas -brown robed nuns to the spangled disco dancer peacocks - cackling in the dust of our yard. I got used to the chatters, squeaks, squalls, peeps, calls that sounded like bitter laughter, whistles, flutes, calls that sounded like souls ascending to heaven. I got used to dust and flatness, to sunsets like pink water pouring from the sky, flooding the earth with orange soda. I got used to wind: the hot, cruel wind of afternoon, the merciful magnolia breeze of night. I got used to it. But then I had to go. — Kathleen Founds

The Bushes were certainly part of Texas in their mind, but they didn't have the kind of political flavor that you normally find in Texas politicians. It's just Texas is such a unique place to itself that politically, at least so far, they haven't found anybody to play nationally. — Gail Collins

I love L.A. It was an awesome place to spend my 20s, full of creative people, but I never wanted to stay there. It wasn't necessarily Texas that I wanted to move to; I just knew I wanted to live in the country somewhere. My wife and I found this place in Texas that we really liked, so we packed up our stuff and moved. — Scoot McNairy

Tell her I'm sorry I sold the diamond, eh?" Sammy said. "I broke my promise. When she disappeared in Alaska ... ah, so long ago, I finally used that diamond, moved to Texas as I always dreamed. I started my machine shop. Started my family! It was a good life, but Haze; was right. The diamond came with a curse. I never saw her again."
"Oh, Sammy," Hazel said. "No, a curse didn't keep me away. I wanted to come back. I died!"
The old man didn't seem to hear. He smiled down at the baby, and kissed him on the head. "I give you my blessing, Leo. First male great-grandchild! I have a feeling you are special, like Hazel was. You are more than a regular baby, eh? You will carry on for me. You will see her someday. Tell her hello for me. — Rick Riordan

I'm from Indiana. I know what you're thinking, Indiana ... Mafia. But in Indiana it's not like New York where everyone's like, 'We're from New York and we're the best' or 'We're from Texas and we like things big' it's more like 'We're from Indiana and we're gonna move.' — Jim Gaffigan

I'm very friendly or whatever, but I would hardly say that I'm that cookie-cutter. I don't live in L.A. or New York. I live in Texas, and I go to hole-in-the-wall bars, so there's no paparazzi there. — Kelly Clarkson

I was born in the city of Brantford, Ontario, Canada - but by the time I'd left high school, I'd moved seven times with my family, my father's engineering work taking us to places as far-flung as Bay City, Texas, and Wolnae-Ri in South Korea. — Susanna Kearsley

On Wednesday, April 9, 1969, Bush, who was just beginning his second term as a congressman, flew to see the former president at LBJ's ranch at Stonewall, Texas, about 220 miles from Houston. "Mr. President, I've still got a decision to make and I'd like your advice," Bush said. "My House seat is secure - no opposition last time - and I've got a position on Ways and Means. I don't mind taking risks, but in a few more terms, I'll have seniority on a powerful committee. I'm just not sure it's a gamble I should take, whether it's really worth it." "Son," Johnson said, "I've served in the House. And I've been privileged to serve in the Senate, too. And they're both good places to serve. So I wouldn't begin to advise you what to do, except to say this - that the difference between being a member of the Senate and a member of the House is the difference between chicken salad and chicken shit." The former president paused. "Do I make my point? — Jon Meacham

Texas was home. We went to Anchorage to get rich in 1959. Someone told us, 'If you drive a nail, you could make $100 a day in construction work.' We were hungry, and we stayed there for a year and a half. But I never did plan to stay there - the same with Nashville. I was gonna go up there and work, but Texas was home. — Johnny Gimble

I'm from Texas. You would think my biggest draw would be in that state. But my biggest draw is Pennsylvania. — Bill Engvall

My one-time roommate Claire had inherited the house from her uncle, and when she went off to bigger and better things, she'd left it in my care. And it needed a lot of it.
Most importantly, it needed a new roof. There was a worrying stain on the ceiling of my bedroom that had started out roughly the shape of Rhode Island, but now looked more like North Carolina. Another few more days of rain and it was going to be Texas. And then it wouldn't be anything at all because the battered old shingles were going to cave in on my head. — Karen Chance

I had been in so many towns and cities in America with John Kennedy, but I was not with him in Dallas, Texas, on November 21, 1963. — Pierre Salinger

The people of Texas are rightly proud of their own, just like the French and the Italians, but visiting artists have often been given a shot in the history of art. — Clifford Ross

But that's the thing about East Texas. Red dirt never quite washes out, and pine pollen is tenacious as original sin. You can leave East Texas, for Houston, for the Metroplex, for the Commonwealth, for New York, or Bonn or Tokyo or Kowloon; but you can never quite leave it behind. — Markham Shaw Pyle

The name of the game is no-limit Texas Hold'em, the game that takes a minute to learn but a lifetime to master. — Mike Sexton

All of this is not just a battle plan, it's a vacation too. For instance: you don't like the life you are living? Escape into another world by taking a lover. Men can't do this. When they take on a woman she becomes part of their life, but a woman gets to change lives with every man she sleeps with. In fact men are like magic flying carpets; you can visit different lands, become rich or poor without working, become religious by marrying a priest, become a cowboy by having an affair in Texas, join the political game by blowing the President, and tomorrow get high with a pop star. Society is a wonderful thing if you're a woman, you really can go anywhere so long as a man's first priority is to get laid, and that will never change. — Mary Woronov

He skidded to a dead halt and stared hard at Austin. The boy's chin carried so many nicks from his first shave that it was a wonder he hadn't bled to death. He was a year older than Houston had been when he'd last stood on a battlefield. Sweet Lord, Houston had never had the opportunity to shave his whole face; he'd never flirted with girls, wooed women, or danced through the night. He'd never loved.
Not until Amelia.
And he'd given her up because he'd thought it was best for her. Because he had nothing to offer her but a one-roomed log cabin, a few horses, a dream so small that it wouldn't cover the palm of her hand.
And his heart. His wounded heart. — Lorraine Heath

You can stop a raging forest fire, a herd of stampeding buffalo or even a runaway freight train, but you can't stop a good man. — John Paul Warren

That's really sad," Beth said softly, "To have no one left. — R.J. Scott

Texas has long been known as the nation's largest energy producer, but we are equally proud of our distinction as the nation's leading energy innovator. — Rick Perry

Austin stood. "All right, I will." He walked to the door and stopped, his hand on the latch. He gazed back over his shoulder. "That woman you love ... Do I know her?"
Houston forced himself to meet his brother's gaze. The boy only knew one woman, if he didn't count the whores in Dusty Flats. "Yeah, you do."
"She never left your side, not for one minute."
"She should have."
"Well, I'm not learned in these matters, but I'd like to think if a woman ever loved me as much as that one loves you ... I'd crawl through hell to be by her side. — Lorraine Heath

After I found out that I was playing music and that I'd have to learn how to read and write music, I started doing that about two years later. Finally, I said, "Oh, that means what I really want to do is to be a composer." But when I was coming up in Texas, there was segregation. There was no schools to go to. I taught myself how to read and how to start writing. — Ornette Coleman

Jett Gallatin expected trouble in Alsop, Texas - but not zombies. — Mercedes Lackey

One day, when I was still living at home, a friend told 'Texas' Jean Valli about me. She was originally from Syracuse, N.Y., and lived in New Jersey but sang country. One night, she had me come up on stage where she was performing. I sang 'My Mother's Eyes,' and she was knocked out. — Frankie Valli

We've got another nominee coming up, well qualified, Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owens has a tremendous reputation, tremendous record, but they are already marshalling their forces to try to stop that nomination. — Jay Alan Sekulow

Some years ago, I was invited to speak in Houston, Texas. They said I was a founder of 'postmodern theatre'. So I said to my office, 'This is ridiculous for me to go and speak about postmodern theatre when I don't know what it means, but ... they're paying me a lot of money, so I'll go.' — Robert Wilson

What was the first name of the Houston club? It wasn't the Astros. It was the Colt .45s. A lot of guys now will say Colt 45 is a beer. But it was also a pistol, and it went right with Texas. — Pat Gillick

Once upon a time Apache land would have stretched farther than the horizon, through New Mexico almost to Texas, but as white men found gold, silver, turquoise, and copper beneath its surface they carved up the territory like children sneaking to the fridge and slicing off a chocolate cake bit by bit: hoping at first that the loss wouldn't be noticed but ultimately not really caring. — Victoria Finlay

The best thing that could've happened to me was that I learned a lot in Vegas, but I didn't know how to implement it. Whenever I came to Texas, all we had was Marc Laimon, jiu-jitsu coach. We didn't have a striking coach. So me and him started to just develop our own game, because he knows nothing about striking. We sat down and we sort of found my style. I think that was the best thing that could've happened to me. — Johny Hendricks

I didn't grow up in one place, so I never had a certain mentality. I have some aspects of growing up in Texas, but I also have a lot of East Coast family. I would have loved to grow up on the East Coast. — Debby Ryan

At 6:15 she was standing on her front porch watering gardenias and watching another line of thunderstorms split and go around her. The same thing happened almost every day. Some days they came so close all she could smell was the rain. The wind whipped up dust from the fields until it drove like buckshot into the shuddering mesquites, and Clara Nell started to pray. 'Jesus,' she whispered. 'Jesus, Jesus....' But the only thing that came out of the sky was her topsoil. Every day the wind took a little more, and it hadn't rained in almost a year. — Andrew Geyer

I grew up in Texas, eating meat five times a day, and I liked meat. But I began being a vegetarian when I was 19 because I found that I felt better. — Dean Ornish

Texas history is a varied, tempestuous, and vast as the state itself. Texas yesterday is unbelievable, but no more incredible than Texas today. Today's Texas is exhilarating, exasperating, violent, charming, horrible, delightful, alive. — Edna Ferber

Cordelia!"
She staggered to a stop and slowly turned as her father's voice reverberated around the room.
"You just accused your brothers of trying to commit murder."
"No, Father. From this day forward, Cameron is the only brother I have. If you allow these two to remain in your home after what I have just told you, then I also have no father."
"You're as high-spirited and stubborn as your mother. I warned Leigh that he needed to keep a tight rein on you, but he wouldn't listen."
"Dallas isn't one to follow in other men's footsteps. Giving him permission to marry me was the finest gift you could have ever given me. — Lorraine Heath

Took your car, drove to Texas. Sorry honey, but I suspected, you and I can't cry anymore. — Sheryl Crow

My publishing deal is out of Nashville, my management is split between Nashville and Texas, but we are also getting to play eight other states as well as Canada and Europe this year. I don't want to pigeon-hole myself. When people ask me if I'm Texas or Nashville, I tell them I am just Cody Johnson. — Cody Johnson

A minute later, Jace landed where I'd fallen, and I helped him up.
"You okay?"
"Hell, no." He actually wobbled on his feet and clung to me, his face whiter than a sun-bleached Texas sidewalk. "There's a reason cats don't have wings."
"Yeah, but at least we always land on our feet."
"Then why did I land on my ass? — Rachel Vincent

There were moments of racial unity. Lawrence Goodwyn found in east Texas an unusual coalition of black and white public officials: it had begun during Reconstruction and continued into the Populist period. The state government was in the control of white Democrats, but in Grimes County, blacks won local offices and sent legislators to the state capital. The district clerk was a black man; there were black deputy sheriffs and a black school principal. A night-riding White Man's Union used intimidation and murder to split the coalition, but Goodwyn points to "the long years of interracial cooperation in Grimes County" and wonders about missed opportunities. — Howard Zinn

I had never been to Texas. I'd been through Texas, but I'm so glad to be back in a place that's not L.A. or New York. To talk about Dallas, to talk about there being sweet tea on the catering table, it's rich and saturated in American-ness. — Kelli Giddish

You can take the girl out of Texas but not the Texas out of the girl and ultimately not the girl out of Texas. — Janine Turner

I'm born and raised in Houston, Texas, but Wisconsin is always going to be a home for me, and I'll always be back. — Donald Driver

He pulled her mirror out of his other pocket. "You left your mirror on my table." He extended it toward her.
"You can keep it," she said quietly. "We have lots of mirrors here."
"I'll keep it, then."
"Good. I'm glad."
He'd never rushed headlong into a battle, but he figured this time, it might be the best approach. "I spent a lot of time studying it. The back is real pretty with all the gold carving. Took me about an hour to gather up the courage to turn it over and look at the other side."
"And what did you see?"
" Aman who loves you more than life itself."
Closing her eyes, she dropped her chin to her chest.
"I wouldn't blame you if you hated me. I haven't held your feelings as precious as I should have."
"I don't hate you," she whispered hoarsely. "I tried to, but I can't."
-Houston and Amelia — Lorraine Heath

I don't know that we do. I had thought ours worked well, but I had never examined it too closely. A lot of media people will be looking for a case that might make Texas Governor George Bush think twice about what he's doing. — George Ryan

Place is so important to me. The Midwest is like a ghost in my life. It's present as I look out the window now. I see Texas, but if I close my eyes and look out the same window, I'm back in my hometown in Worthington, Minnesota, and I cherish those values and that diction. — Tim O'Brien

At first, I felt bad judging an entire state by one county political official, but then I found out Morrison had also helped screen public school textbooks, a topic which is another chapter in my book. The Alamo is managed by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, a group whose members can claim a relative who was living in Texas during the revolution. The fight over mismanagement of the Alamo has been going on for years. — Gail Collins

I don't want my hair to be ridiculous. But in Texas I do wear a hat a lot, so I probably have hat-head more than I'm aware of. — Thomas Haden Church

Texas Senator Ted Cruz said if elected president he would abolish the Department of Education. But not to worry. He promised to replace it with the less expensive Bureau of Book Learning. — Conan O'Brien

I was working in a church in Florida as a youth intern, which means I really didn't do much other than staple stuff. I'm from Dallas, Texas, and every time my grandmother would call-she would call me any time of the day-I'd be home answering the phone. She was like, "What do you do all day?" and sarcastically I would say, "Well, I'm trying to chalk off the next year to spend time finding a band name." And she said, "Well mercy me, why don't you get a real job?" I thought, "Wait a minute. That's the perfect name." That kind of freed up my year but that's where the name came from. — Bart Millard

But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask; why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? — John F. Kennedy

She'd been hired to protect him. But he'd come to a place where he'd do anything, give anything, risk anything to protect her. — Becky Wade

I not only rejoice, but congratulate my beloved country Texas is reannexed, and the safety, prosperity, and the greatest interest of the whole Union is secured by this great and important national act. — Andrew Jackson

People think I'm girlish and flippant, but I was an honours student. I was voted Girl Most Likely To Succeed at North Mesquite High in Texas. My best subject was science. I won a scholarship. — Jerry Hall

I was born in Dallas, Texas, but I was raised in south Florida. 'Ice Ice Baby' is about that area. — Vanilla Ice

But most important, I see me . . . or rather, the me I've become. Because I can finally see that all the terrible parts of my life, the embarrassing parts, the incidents I wanted to pretend never happened, and the things that make me "weird" and "different," were actually the most important parts of my life. They were the parts that made me me. And this was the very reason I decided to tell this story . . . to celebrate the strange, to give thanks for the bizarre, and to one day help my daughter understand that the reason her mother appeared mostly naked on Fox News (that's in book two, sorry) is probably the same reason her grandfather occasionally brings his pet donkey into bars: Because you are defined not by life's imperfect moments, but by your reaction to them. Because there is joy in embracing - rather than running screaming from - the utter absurdity of life. And because it's illegal to leave an unattended donkey in your car, even if you do live in Texas. — Anonymous

Texas is a country in its own. It's made up of half Mexico/half United States but completed mixed. I don't mean to draw a generalization but it is a place, a territory, that's really made up of all these encounters, you know? — Gael Garcia Bernal

Dallas Cowboys may be America's team, but the Houston Oilers are Texas' team. — Bum Phillips

That's right, you're not from Texas. But Texas wants you anyways. — Lyle Lovett

When the Mattachine Society of Washington's founder, Frank Kameny, testified to a congressional committee in 1962, he informed his interrogators that the group's mailing list had only about a hundred names on it. That was inconceivable to congressmen such as John Dowdy, a Texas Democrat who had assumed that the society was an arm of a "national and international organization" with "up in the millions" of members.79 The committee was puzzled further by the fact that Kameny believed that there were a quarter-million homosexuals in the city - not because they doubted that there were so many, but because he didn't have each one's contact information. The investigators assumed, Johnson wrote, "that homosexuals were inherently drawn to the same clique and would somehow all be on the same mailing list. — Jesse Walker

My hope is that this volume will make a fresh impact on an entirely new generation of believers who are longing to be free from bondage to others, but have not known how to make that happen. It is gratifying to think that these pages will provide the keys you have been looking for that will unlock those iron bars and release you from the shackles of slavery to others, awakening you to what it means to be truly free. Free in Christ. Free indeed. Free at last. - CHARLES R. SWINDOLL Dallas, Texas — Charles R. Swindoll

I grew up mostly in Germany, but my favorite summer trip was driving from North Carolina to Texas in a camper with my parents and us six kids. — Michael Strahan

I was born in a hurricane in Pensacola, Florida ... my dad was in the military, so we moved all over the place. But I consider myself a southerner from Louisiana. I've lived in Texas for most of my adult life. — Kimberly Willis Holt

Now place yourself in the shoes of Clifford Runoalds, another African American victim of the Hearne drug bust.2 You returned home to Bryan, Texas, to attend the funeral of your eighteen-month-old daughter. Before the funeral services begin, the police show up and handcuff you. You beg the officers to let you take one last look at your daughter before she is buried. The police refuse. You are told by prosecutors that you are needed to testify against one of the defendants in a recent drug bust. You deny witnessing any drug transaction; you don't know what they are talking about. Because of your refusal to cooperate, you are indicted on felony charges. After a month of being held in jail, the charges against you are dropped. You are technically free, but as a result of your arrest and period of incarceration, you lose your job, your apartment, your furniture, and your car. Not to mention the chance to say good-bye to your baby girl. This is the War on Drugs. The — Michelle Alexander

The American craving for illegal, mind-altering, addictive chemicals provides a steady flow of American capital through the Texas border into Mexico and South America. Basically, the drug traffic is uncontainable as long as its U.S. market exists, but newspapers and other media virtuously trumpet feel-good headlines about "record drug busts" and arrests while the drug trade continues unabated. — William Earl Maxwell

It turned out to be a young Dasypus novemcinctus, a nine-banded armadillo, about the size of a small loaf of bread. Although they were becoming more common in Texas, I'd never seen one up close before. Anatomically speaking, it resembled the unhappy melding of an anteater (the face), a mule (the ears), and a tortoise (the carapace). I thought it overall an unlucky creature in the looks department, but Granddaddy once said that to apply a human definition of beauty to an animal that had managed to thrive for millions of years was both unscientific and foolish. — Jacqueline Kelly

We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate ... We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the old world some weeks nearer to the new; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad flapping American ear will be that Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough. — Henry David Thoreau