Subject H-P

"I think that knowledge of your regions, language, it's culture, the commonalities, whether eating collard greens or making cornbread, those things contribute to a deep understanding, which we need. And I regret that young people's minds or senses are fed only by canned outside consumer-driven imagery and sound."

"I feel more comfortable in the internal world than I do the external one. I think that's why I can really, really fall in love with the characters, and that's so necessary in writing. Every book that I've written, every time I develop a character, I love that character, even the bad ones. I love them, and I can see them. They move around me and they live with me. I see them, and I see the places where I put them. I try to tell people this and they just think I'm crazy."

"It's about knowing. We need to know what our history is. People have said that you repeat your mistakes when you don't go back and know your history."

"You never take a man's dignity away from him because then you do have to fight him. It's like backing an animal into a corner-- eventually he going to bite back at you. It's more like social work than police work, really."

"You know how the South is... land was what they inherited and land was what they held onto."

"African American women had to work and so education was considered our way out, as a way up the ladder. There was never a question about whether you were going to go to college. It was where you were going to go."

"I think people are beginning to recognize that we are going back to doing things the way people did when they first came to this valley. I think that's why we get more people who are proud of us than people who think that we're crazy."

"I do favor myself a little old country preacher. I probably could pastor a larger church in a different area. But I've never been a preacher who's in the ministry for the car I drive or the clothes on my back. I never want to feel like I got to get a bigger church to feel validated in this ministry. Nah, man, fart on that.'

"The Southeastern part of the United States is known for college football. Whenever you go down South, the whole state shuts down for a Saturday football game. It's hard fought, and that is what makes the Southeastern Conference so special, the rivalries. The Hatfields and the McCoys, that's like choir girls compared to SEC football!"

"They call me Peter Pan, because I'm always dreaming, and hell, I'm 75, but I feel 25. So it's all been fun. My whole life has been an adventure."

"I have been subliminally programmed to believe that convenience was the highest order, if you will. And it turns out that it is antithetical to community, because community is not convenient. Community is exactly the opposite."

"In '70's when I came off of acid, normalcy was weird to me. People weren't drippin' in front of me. Buttons weren't flyin' off. It was weird. A helluva adjustment. It really was."

"Oh, I think the day will come. I think the day will come when the South will be free and liberated of much of its racist past. When I go back to almost any part of the South, I feel like there's a greater sense of hope, there's a greater sense of optimism than any other region of America."

"A southern woman is very, very calculating and very reserved. She listens before she speaks. And a lot of people outside the South don't understand that southern women realize that they are equal with southern men. They just use their femininity."

"When agriculture's in trouble, everything else is in trouble, you can bet on that. The equipment dealers, the gas dealers, the Wal-Marts. I mean it might take a while for it to get down to that level, but when agriculture's in trouble, everything else is."

"I've got this attitude about 'forms' of music. You can call it country, rock 'n roll, this, that, and the other, but if it's done from your heart, it's all soul music to me. Everything's soul music if it's done with conviction."

"I don't know whether it is the love of photography or the love of what photography did for me --it gave me some measure of importance. I was a withdrawn, shy kid and always felt inferior. But the camera was my security blanket. If I go out tonight and I'm not with somebody, I'll have that camera, whether I shoot or not. That's my security blanket. I can go anywhere in the world now."

"You know, I'm still learning. That's why I said I haven't grown up yet. A lot of people ask me 'Which is your best suit?' I always reply, 'Well, my best suit is coming soon'"

"Well, I've always said, 'What's to be will be. No matter what happens, if it's intended to be that way.' That's been my attitude from anything that comes up. I just feel like, if that was what was intended for my life to be and the thoughts or the facts."

"I always believed in the power of lipstick. It's dramatic and it makes you look prettier."

"That's the way I've always done things, never in moderation. I mean, if I'm going to do it, it's kind of balls to the wall or none at all."

"My grandfather was an entrepreneur in a sense, he did a lot of things and provided very well for us. He always instilled in us the need to give back to others, and I guess I grew up with that notion. I guess that's one reason why I got into education, because it's one way of giving back to others who may not have all the things that they need to have that great life initially, but education can provide that for you."

"We grew up 100% Cuban because at home we must speak fluent Spanish with my mom to make sure that we keep up with all of our cultural things--but at the same time around all of our friends, the people who surrounded us, it was the South, and so we were 100% southern, too.

"There's just something about Payne's; it changes people. Actually, there was a write-up not too long ago. This guy said this place is like a religion or something. There really is a good spirit here."

"I'm just living proof, God knows, that we can all get along. It doesn't make any difference what color I am or who I sleep with. We all are God's children, why can't we just get along? You may have a little more than I have. I may have a lot less than you have, honey, but we still can be happy in this little place called Selma."

"I can make any quilt. I ain't seen none yet that I've tried and didn't do. I love to put my mind to it, bend my eyes down in there, and see what I can do with it. I don't believe there's one that would out-do me."