John Berendt > Quotes

“Rule number one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
― John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“If you go to Atlanta, the first question people ask you is, "What's your business?" In Macon they ask, "Where do you go to church?" In Augusta they ask your grandmother's maiden name. But in Savannah the first question people ask you is "What would you like to drink?”
― John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“Two tears in a bucket. Motherfuck it.”
― John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“Keep a diary, but don't just list all the things you did during the day. Pick one incident and write it up as a brief vignette. Give it color, include quotes and dialogue, shape it like a story with a beginning, middle and end—as if it were a short story or an episode in a novel. It's great practice. Do this while figuring out what you want to write a book about. The book may even emerge from within this running diary.”
― John Berendt

“She was a marvel. She did exactly as she pleased all her life, God bless her.”
― John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“Loneliness is not being alone, It's loving others to no avail.”
― John Berendt, The City of Falling Angels

“By morning she was dead. She had not died of starvation or committed suicide by any conventional means. She had simply willed herself to die, and being a strong-willed woman, she had succeeded. She had missed dying on her birthday by two days.”
― John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“But I never think about dead people. Looking at these old graves makes me think how generation after generation of the same family are all gathered together. And that makes me think about how life goes on, but not about dying. I never think about dying.”
― John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“Someone once wrote that musicians are touched on the shoulder by God, and I think it's true. You can make other people happy with music, but you can make yourself happy too. Because of my music, I have never known loneliness and never been depressed.”
― John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“For me, Savannah's resistance to change was its saving grace. The city looked inward, sealed off from the noises and distractions of the world at large. It grew inward, too, and in such a way that its people flourished like hothouse plants tended by an indulgent gardener. The ordinary became extraordinary. Eccentrics thrived. Every nuance and quirk of personality achieved greater brilliance in that lush enclosure than would have been possible anywhere else in the world.”
― John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“The South is one big drag show, honey [...].”
― John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“If there’s a single trait common to all Savannahians, it’s their love of money and their unwillingness to spend it.”
― John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“Never spend any of your hard-earned money on clothes and accessories. You need to get yourself a mayyin to buy all that for you.”
― John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“[Quoting Miss Harty:]

"People come here from all over the country and fall in love with Savannah. Then they move here and pretty soon they’re telling us how much more lively and prosperous Savannah could be if we only knew what we had and how to take advantage of it. I call these people ‘Gucci carpetbaggers.”
― John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“Black magic never stops. What goes from you comes to you. Once you start this shit, you gotta keep it up. Just like the utility bill. Just like the grocery store. Or they kill you. You got to keep it up. Two, five, ten, twenty years.”
― John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“We have a saying: If you go to Atlanta, the first question people ask you is, ‘What’s your business?’ In Macon they ask, ‘Where do you go to church?’ In Augusta they ask your grandmother’s maiden name. But in Savannah the first question people ask you is ‘What would you like to drink?”
― John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“There being no direct route to Savannah from Charleston, I followed a zigzagging course that took me through the tidal flatlands of the South Carolina low country. As I approached Savannah, the road narrowed to a two-lane blacktop shaded by tall trees. There was an occasional produce stand by the side of the road and a few cottages set into the foliage, but nothing resembling urban sprawl. The voice on the radio informed me that I had entered a zone called the Coastal Empire.”
― John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“This town is like Gone with the Wind on mescaline!" From Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.”
― John Berendt

“For me, Savannah’s resistance to change was its saving grace. The city looked inward, sealed off from the noises and distractions of the world at large. It grew inward, too, and in such a way that its people flourished like hothouse plants tended by an indulgent gardener. The ordinary became extraordinary. Eccentrics thrived. Every nuance and quirk of personality achieved greater brilliance in that lush enclosure than would have been possible anywhere else in the world.”
― John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“Dr. Irving Stone of the Institute for Forensic Sciences in Dallas. He’s the guy who analyzed the clothing worn by President Kennedy and Governor Connally for the congressional committee that reexamined the Kennedy assassination.”
― John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“Sometimes I just can't face going through with breakfast.”
― John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“more drink. That’s when things happen. That’s when you find out everything you want to know.”
― John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“If there were not a bridge from Venice to Europe, Europe would be an island”
― John Berendt

“Savannah was invariably gracious to strangers, but it was immune to their charms. It wanted nothing so much as to be left alone. Time”
― John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“The tides surged through the marsh and each wave that hit the beach came light-struck and broad-shouldered, with all the raw power the moon could bestow.”
― John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“rum-drinking pirates, strong-willed women, courtly manners, eccentric behavior, gentle words, and lovely music.”
― John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“Jim Williams’s guilt or innocence is no longer the issue,” he said. “Spencer Lawton’s incompetence is the issue.”
― John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“Rule number one: Always stick around for one more drink.”
― John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“Don’t you feel cut off?” I asked. “Cut off from what?” she replied. “No, on the whole I’d say we rather enjoy our separateness.”
― John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“What do you read?

I read what friends tell me is good. This explains the book's success, partially. It got very good reviews. Good reviews will get you a readership right away, but that's it. The review or the article appears one day in a magazine or a newspaper, then it's gone. Word of mouth is a continuing phenomenon, much more powerful.”
― John Berendt