People From North Carolina

"There was nobody around but me, nobody else in the world but me and a million animals and a thousand noises and the bright sun and the cool breeze and the shade from the big trees that made it cathedral-cool but a lot less musty and damp and full of century-old fear and trembling. I got to thinking that maybe this was what God had in mind when He invented religion, instead of all the don’t and must-nots and sins and confessions of sins. I got to thinking about all the big churches I had been in, including those in Rome, and how none of them could possibly compare with this place, with its brilliant birds and its soothing sounds of intense life all around and the feeling of ineffable peace and good will, so that not even man would be capable of behaving very badly in such a place. I thought that this was maybe the kind of place the Lord would come to sit in and get His strength back after a hard day's work trying to straighten out mankind. Certainly He wouldn't go inside a church. If the Lord was tired He would be uneasy inside a church."

"If a man does away with his traditional way of living and throws away his good customs, he had better first make certain that he has something of value to replace them."

"They learn all our bad habits. We destroy every bit of their old logical living because it conflicts with our law, and replace it with bleeding nothing. So now you have, excuse me, please, whores when once there was no such thing as prostitution, and robbers and spivs and sly loafers, because they've become detribalized without becoming decently citified."

"Look at the mighty Mississippi the Father of Waters—it rises in the nameless snows of North America—runs through twenty-three degrees of latitude, all our own soil, and washes the sides of ten young, flourishing, and powerful States; its tributaries drain the rains that fall in sight of the Atlantic and meet the streams that flow into the Pacific upon the summit of the Rocky Mountains—its broad tides bear on their buoyant bosom the clothing of half of the world, and the fertile valleys, which spread out from its ample banks are capable of producing food for the population of the whole earth for a thousand years to come."

"Everybody is suffering one way or the other because of things that aren’t being done. They will not listen to us."

"They just will not recognize what we’re saying. It really hurts because now we’re sitting there without any power. We have to take what’s being given."

"Gloristine Brown may come from a small town…but she gets BIG things done in the State House."

"As the young reporter listens, it dawns on him that it is not the South that he longs for but the past, the South's past and his own past, neither of which, in the way that he has been driven by homesickness to think of them, ever really existed, and that it is time for him to move out of the time gone by and into the here and now — it is time for him to grow up. When the sermon is over, he goes back downtown feeling that the old man has set him free, and that he is now a citizen of the city and a citizen of the world."

"All information of a spiritual or personal nature will have to come from our father, who art in Heaven, and I think he's in New York City right now."

"Even today, I sometimes get really quite painfully homesick for Norwood. A sour smell that reminds me of the tanneries will bring it on, such as the smell from a basement down in the Italian part of the Village where some old Italian is making wine. That's one of the damnedest things I ever found out about human emotions and how treacherous they can be — the fact that you can hate a place with all your heart and soul and still be homesick for it. Not to speak of the fact that you can hate a person with all your heart and soul and still long for that person."

"It is perhaps an ugly comment on the American press, but the function of the interviewer on most newspapers is to entertain, not to shed light. ... An interviewer soon begins to judge public figures on the basis of their entertainment value, overlooking their true importance. It is not easy to get an interview with Professor Franz Boas, the greatest anthropologist in the world, across a city desk, but a mild interview with Oom the Omnipotent will hit the bottom of page one under a two-column head. ... It is safe to write accurately only about the nuts and the bums. When a public figure does something ridiculous reporters may then write about him accurately."

"Life is a mess, but you wouldn't want to miss it."

"My grandfather used to like the word 'mitigate,'" Harry said. "He liked the sound of it, and he used it whenever he could. When he was a very old man, he often got on the subject of dying. 'You cant talk your way out,' he'd often say, 'and you can't buy your way out, and you can't shoot your way out, and the only thing that mitigates the matter in the slightest is the fact that nobody else is going to escape. Nobody — no, not one.'" "I know, I know," said Mr. Hewitt, "but what's the purpose of it?" "You supported your wife, didn't you?" asked Harry. "You raised a family, didn't you? That's the purpose of it." "That's no purpose," said Mr. Hewitt. "The same thing that's going to happen to me is going to happen to them." "The generations have to keep coming along," said Harry. "That's all I know." "You're put here, " said Mr. Hewitt, "and you're allowed to eat and draw breath and go back and forth a few short years, and about the time you get things in shape where you can sit down and enjoy them you wind up in a box in a hole in the ground, and as far as I can see, there's no purpose to it whatsoever."

"We get a lot of goormies in Libby's," said Mr. Murchison. "I can spot a goormy right off. Moment he sits down he wants to know do we have any boolybooze." "Bouillabaisse," said Mr. Flood. "Yes," said Mr. Murchison, "and I tell him, 'Quit showing off! We don't carry no boolybooze. Never did. There's a time and a place for everything. If you was to go into a restaurant in France,' I ask him, 'would you call for some Daniel Webster fish chowder?' I love a hearty eater, but I do despise a goormy. All they know is boolybooze and pompano and something that's out of season, nothing else will do. And when they get through eating they don't settle their check and go on about their business. No, they sit there and deliver you a lecture on what they et, how good it was, how it was almost as good as a piece of fish they had in the Caffy dee lah Pooty-doo in Paris, France, on January 16, 1928; they remember every meal they ever et, or make out they do. And every goormy I ever saw is an expert on herbs. Herbs, herbs, herbs! If you let one get started on the subject of herbs he'll talk you deef, dumb, and blind. Way I feel about herbs, on any fish I ever saw, pepper and salt and a spoon of melted butter is herbs aplenty."

"I was young then, and much more courteous to older people — and to everyone else, for that matter, as I look back on it — than I should have been. Also, I had not yet found out about time; I was still under the illusion that I had plenty of time — time for this, time for that, time for everything, time to waste."

"I'm immune to the average germ; don't even catch colds; haven't had a cold since 1912. Only reason I caught that one, I went on a toot and it was a pouring-down rainy night in the dead of winter and my shoes were cracked and they let the damp in and I lost my balance a time or two and sloshed around in the gutter and somewhere along the line I mislaid my hat and I'd just had a haircut and I stood in a draft in one saloon an hour or more and there was a poor fellow next to me sneezing his head off and when I got home I crawled into a bed that was beside an open window like a fool and passed out with my wet clothes on, shoes and all. Also, I'd spent the night before sitting up on a train and hadn't slept a wink and my resistance was low. If the good Lord can just see His way clear to protect me from accidents, no stumbling on the stairs, no hell-fired automobiles bearing down on me in the dark, no broken bones, I'll hit a hundred and fifteen easy."

"I've made quite a study of fish cooks," Mr. Flood says, "and I’ve decided that old Italians are best. Then comes old colored men, then old mean Yankees, and then old drunk Irishmen. They have to be old; it takes almost a lifetime to learn how to do a thing simply. Even the stove has to be old. If the cook is an awful drunk, so much the better. I don’t think a teetotaler could cook a fish. If he was a mean teetotaler, he might."

"The trembly fellow sighed and said, "I'm all out of whack. I'm going uptown and see my doctor." Mr. Flood snorted again. "Oh, shut up," he said. "Damn your doctor! I tell you what you do. You get right out of here and go over to Libby’s oyster house and tell the man you want to eat some of his big oysters. Don’t sit down. Stand up at that fine marble bar they got over there, where you can watch the man knife them open. And tell him you intend to drink the oyster liquor; he'll knife them on the cup shell, so the liquor won't spill. And be sure you get the big ones. Get them so big you'll have to rear back to swallow, the size that most restaurants use for fries and stews; God forgive them, they don't know any better. Ask for Robbins Islands, Mattitucks, Cape Cods, or Saddle Rocks. And don't put any of that red sauce on them, that cocktail sauce, that mess, that gurry. Ask the man for half a lemon, poke it a time or two to free the juice, and squeeze it over the oysters. And the first one he knifes, pick it up and smell it, the way you'd smell a rose, or a shot of brandy. That briny, seaweedy fragrance will clear your head; it'll make your blood run faster. And don't just eat six; take your time and eat a dozen, eat two dozen, eat three dozen, eat four dozen. And then leave the man a generous tip and go buy yourself a fifty-cent cigar and put your hat on the side of your head and take a walk down to Bowling Green. Look at the sky! Isn't it blue? And look at the girls a-tap-tap-tapping past on their pretty little feet! Aren't they just the finest girls you ever saw, the bounciest, the rumpiest, the laughingest? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself for even thinking about spending good money on a damned doctor? And along about here, you better be careful. You're apt to feel so bucked-up you'll slap strangers on the back, or kick a window in, or fight a cop, or jump on the tailboard of a truck and steal a ride.""

"He is a night wanderer, and he has put down descriptions of dreadful things he has seen on dark New York streets — descriptions, for example, of the herds of big gray rats that come out in the hours before dawn in some neighborhoods of the lower East Side and Harlem and unconcernedly walk the sidewalks. "I sometimes believe that these rats are not rats at all," he says, "but the damned and aching souls of tenement landlords.""

"I was sneezing my head off, my eyes were sore, my knees were shaky, I was hungry as a bitch wolf, and I had exactly eight cents to my name. I didn’t care. My history was longer by eleven thousand brand-new words, and at that moment I bet there wasn’t a chairman of the board in all New York as happy as I."

"When Gould arrives at a party, people who have never seen him before usually take one look, snicker, and edge away. Before the evening is over, however, a few of them almost always develop a kind of puzzled respect for him; they get him in a corner, ask him questions, and try to determine what is wrong with him. Gould enjoys this. "When you came over and kissed my hand," a young woman told him once, "I said to myself, 'What a nice old gentleman.' A minute later I looked around and you were bouncing up and down with your shirt off, imitating a wild Indian. I was shocked. Why do you have to be such an exhibitionist?" "Madam," Gould said, "it is the duty of the bohemian to make a spectacle of himself. If my informality leads you to believe that I'm a rum-dumb, or that I belong in Bellevue, hold fast to that belief, hold fast, hold fast, and show your ignorance.""

"He had a habit of remarking to bartenders that he didn’t see any sense in mixing whiskey with water, since the whiskey was already wet."

"You're a trouble-maker. What race do you belong to, anyhow?" "The human race," I said. "I come from the womb and I'm bound for the tomb, the same as you, the same as King George the Six, the same as Johnny Squat."

"When things get too much for me, I put a wild-flower book and a couple of sandwiches in my pockets and go down to the South Shore of Staten Island and wander around awhile in one of the old cemeteries down there."

"Mazie became interested in Catholicism in the winter of 1920. A drug addict on Mulberry Street, a prostitute with two small daughters, came to her cage one night and asked for help. The woman said her children were starving. "I knew this babe was a junky," Mazie says, "and I followed her home just to see was she lying about her kids. She had two kids all right, and they were starving in this crummy little room. I tried to get everybody to do something — the cops, the Welfare, the so-called missions on the Bowery that the Methodists run or whatever to hell they are. But all these people said the girl was a junky. That excused them from lifting a hand. So I seen two nuns on the street, and they went up there with me. Between us, we got the woman straightened out. I liked the nuns. They seemed real human. Ever since then I been interested in the Cat'lic Church.""

"Here a while back I heard a preacher talking on the radio about the peacefulness of the old, and I thought to myself, 'You ignorant man!' I'm ninety-four years old and I have never yet had any peace, to speak of. My mind is just a turmoil of regrets. It's not what I did that I regret, it's what I didn't do. Except for the bottle, I always walked the straight and narrow; a family man, a good provider, never cut up, never did ugly, and I regret it. In the summer of 1902 I came real close to getting in serious trouble with a married woman, but I had a fight with my conscience and my conscience won, and what’s the result? I had two wives, good, Christian women, and I can't hardly remember what either of them looked like, but I can remember the face on that woman so clear it hurts, and there's never a day passes I don’t think about her, and there's never a day passes I don't curse myself. 'What kind of a timid, dried-up, weevily fellow were you?' I say to myself. 'You should've said to hell with what's right and what's wrong, the devil take the hindmost. You'd have something to remember, you'd be happier now.' She's out in Woodlawn, six feet under, and she's been there twenty-two years, God rest her, and here I am, just an old, old man with nothing but a belly and a brain and a dollar or two."

"I've long since lost my taste for good coffee," he says. "I much prefer the kind that sooner or later, if you keep on drinking it, your hands will begin to shake and the whites of your eyes will turn yellow."

"The measure of capacity is the measure of sphere for either man or woman."

"Yes, this is Life; and everywhere we meet, Not victor crowns, but wailings of defeat."

"My friends, do we realize for what purpose we are convened? Do we fully understand that we aim at nothing less than an entire subversion of the present order of society, a dissolution of the whole existing compact? Do we see that it is not an error of today, nor of yesterday against which we are lifting up the voice of dissent but that it is against the ... error of all times — error borne onward from the footprints of the first pair ejected from Paradise, down to our own time? ... Bitterness is the child of wrong; if any of our number has become embittered ... it is because social wrong has so penetrated to the inner life that we are crucified today."

"'Tis rushing now adown the spout And gushing out below, Half frantic in its joyousness, And wild in eager flow. The earth is dried and parch’d with heat, And it hath longed to be Released from out the selfish cloud, To cool the thirsty tree."

"How beautiful the water is! To me 'tis wondrous fair— No spot can ever lonely be If water sparkle there— It hath a thousand tongues of mirth, Of grandeur, or delight; And every heart is gladder made When water greets the sight."

"'Tis the summer prime, when the noiseless air In perfumed chalice lies, And the bee goes by with a lazy hum Beneath the sleeping skies."

"White-winged angels meet the child On the vestibule of life, And they offer to his lips All that cup of mingled strife."

"How few women have any history after the age of thirty!"

"Faith is the subtle chain, Which binds us to the Infinite: the voice Of a deep life within, that will remain Until we crowd it thence."

"The tender violet bent in smiles To elves that sported nigh, Tossing the drops of fragrant dew To scent the evening sky."

"Wealth and all its good things becomes with us at last habit. And habit is life."

"Treason is an easy word to speak. A traitor is one who fights and loses. Washington was a traitor to George III. Treason won, and Washington is immortal. Treason is a word that victors hurl at those who fail."

"Though there are few Catholics in the state, an unusual proportion have occupied prominent official positions."

"The biggest challenge facing North Carolina today is affordable housing. As our state experiences rapid growth, housing costs continue to rise, making it harder for working- and middle-class families to find affordable places to live. This issue directly impacts our workforce, local economies, and community stability."

"The legalization of recreational or medical marijuana is a complex and debated issue, and opinions vary. Some argue for its potential medical benefits, economic impact, and social justice considerations, while others express concerns about public health and safety. If North Carolina were to consider legalization, we would need to discuss regulations to address issues like age restrictions, licensing, and taxation to ensure responsible use. It's essential for any policy to strike a balance between individual freedoms and societal interests while addressing potential risks."

"I believe we can do better and I am committed to doing my part. I will continue to represent the needs of my entire district and our state, while working with anyone who’s willing to collaborate for the good of North Carolina, but never compromising my values. The challenges we face are too important for us to remain divided. We owe it to our state to work together to build a better future for all."

"I want to be clear — supporting Opportunity Scholarships doesn’t mean I’m against public schools. I’m in favor of both. I fully support the N.C. Opportunity Scholarship program, also known as school vouchers, because it gives families the freedom to choose the best educational environment for their children. What I prioritize is the student and their individual needs. Every child deserves the chance to succeed, whether in a public, private or charter school."

"It’s impossible to pick just one challenge as North Carolina’s biggest issue. Our state faces complex, interconnected problems — public education, healthcare, housing, economic growth, environment, clean water, voting rights, and more. Each issue is critical and our citizens deserve thoughtful solutions to address them all."

"Women have fought too hard and come too far to have their rights stripped away. Women, not politicians, should make decisions about their own healthcare. I stand firmly in defense of a woman’s right to make her own healthcare decisions"

"However, an underlying issue that is most concerning is the extreme partisanship that’s preventing us from doing the real work North Carolinians deserve. As an Air Force veteran, I’ve seen firsthand what’s possible when people work together toward a common goal. But in the legislature, too often, bills and budgets are crafted behind closed doors, with little input from across the aisle. This undermines democracy by silencing the voices of those we represent. No one party has all of the best ideas; our citizens deserve our best collective efforts."

"These scholarships are distributed based on household income, ensuring that low- and middle-income families benefit the most. As the program stands today, higher-income households are unlikely to qualify for a voucher, making it a targeted solution for those who need financial support. This gives families who couldn’t otherwise afford private school tuition the ability to make the best choice for their children based on academic needs, safety concerns or other factors."

"The claim that N.C. Opportunity Scholarships are about "parental choice" is misleading. Yes, parents should have the ability to choose to send their children to private schools, but they should use private funds — not public tax dollars meant for our struggling public schools. In Cumberland County alone, these vouchers will divert over $25 million from our public schools, further starving a system that’s in crisis. This isn’t about choice — it’s about undermining public education."

"I voted in support of Senate Bill 3, the NC Compassionate Care Act, I believe it is time North Carolina passes medical marijuana. My district is home to Fort Liberty, where many disabled veterans live and suffer from chronic pain due to their service. During my campaign, veterans repeatedly expressed the need for medical marijuana as an alternative treatment for pain management. As a disabled veteran myself, I understand firsthand the challenges of managing pain. This bill was an opportunity for the state to take meaningful action to support our veterans beyond words of gratitude. While the bill has not yet passed the NC House, I remain hopeful that it will in the next session. As for recreational marijuana, I don't foresee it becoming law in the near future, and it is not something I would support at this time. My priority is ensuring we address the immediate healthcare needs of those who need it most, particularly our veterans"