Jill Conner Browne > Quotes

“Try to avoid getting involved with somebody who's gonna need killing before it's over. It may seem to you that that narrows the field somewhat, but be diligent. ”
― Jill Conner Browne, The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love: A Fallen Southern Belle's Look at Love, Life, Men, Marriage, and Being Prepared

“Hate people on an individual basis only - you must actually get to know someone at least slightly before you can properly hate him or her.”
― Jill Connor Browne, The Sweet Potato Queen's Book of Love

“If there exists in this universe anything more infuriating and crazy-making than a man, I don't know what it is, thank you, and I don't want to know. ”
― Jill Conner Browne, The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love: A Fallen Southern Belle's Look at Love, Life, Men, Marriage, and Being Prepared

“Cheap jewelry, however, is worse than no jewelry at all, and there are very few things in life than are worse than no jewelry at all.”
― Jill Conner Browne, The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love: A Fallen Southern Belle's Look at Love, Life, Men, Marriage, and Being Prepared

“Always wear pretty underwear, on account of you just never know.”
― Jill Conner Browne, The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love: A Fallen Southern Belle's Look at Love, Life, Men, Marriage, and Being Prepared

“If some area of your life sucks - do something else. Life is too short - and too long - to spend it being miserable. Life may indeed be short but it is for a fact wide. It is high time we started settling for more.”
― Jill Conner Browne, The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love: A Fallen Southern Belle's Look at Love, Life, Men, Marriage, and Being Prepared

“But, if you've decided to go out on a limb and kill one, for goodness' sake, be prepared. We all read, with dismay, the sad story of a good woman wronged in south Mississippi who took that option and made a complete mess of the entire thing. See, first she shot him. Well, she saw right off the bat that that was a mistake because then she had this enormous dead body to deal with. He was every bit as much trouble to her dead as he ever had been alive, and was getting more so all the time. So then, she made another snap decision to cut him up in pieces and dispose of him a hunk at a time. More poor planning. First, she didn't have the proper carving utensils on hand and hacking him up proved to be just a major chore, plus it made just this colossal mess on her off-white shag living room carpet. It's getting to be like the Cat in the Hat now, only Thing Two ain't showing up to help with the clean-up. She finally gets him into portable-size portions, and wouldn't you know it? Cheap trash bags. Can anything else possible go wrong for this poor woman? So, the lesson here is obvious--for want of a small chain saw, a roll of Visqueen and some genuine Hefty bags, she is in Parchman Penitentiary today instead of New Orleans, where she'd planned to go with her new boyfriend. Preparation is everything.”
― Jill Conner Browne, The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love: A Fallen Southern Belle's Look at Love, Life, Men, Marriage, and Being Prepared

“If you are stuck sweating on a sandbar in the river of your life you've got to find a way back into those swift effervescent currents of joy that are your birthright.”
― Jill Conner Browne, The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love: A Fallen Southern Belle's Look at Love, Life, Men, Marriage, and Being Prepared

“Stay fit and live long and prosper, but write your own obituary now, while you can, just in case.”
― Jill Conner Browne, The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love: A Fallen Southern Belle's Look at Love, Life, Men, Marriage, and Being Prepared

“Life. It's your birthday present. Open it up and play with it. Act like you like it. (The One who gave it to you is watching, after all. Don't want to hurt his feelings.) And if you don't like your life, CHANGE IT. It is all yours.”
― Jill Conner Browne

“I believe that the ability to laugh at oneself is fundamental to the resiliency of the human spirit.”
― Jill Conner Browne, The Sweet Potato Queens' Big-Ass Cookbook

“My sister, Judy, has always said that she would like to lie in state, propped up in her coffin with her eyes blared wide open, face fixed in a big grin, and have a taped greeting for all her mourners. Something real upbeat and, well, live-sounding, like: 'He-e-e-ey!Cuteshoestellyomamahi!”
― Jill Conner Browne, The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love: A Fallen Southern Belle's Look at Love, Life, Men, Marriage, and Being Prepared

“What if, when you woke up in the morning, ALL you had LEFT was what you had thanked God for the night before?”
― Jill Conner Browne

“A stranger came to their door one day. He was singularly unattractive - very little hair covering his hideous, sore-wracked skin, just generally ratty and nasty looking. But as is often said of the unbeautiful of the world, he had a great personality. He came to be known a "Funkdog", because he was, in fact, a dog, and he was funky. And so they started this thing of petting Funkdog with a small stick. That image always just made me want to bawl, and now I know why. I think Funkdog being petted with a stick is a perfect metaphor for what can happen to any of us in this life if we don't pay attention. In any area of our lives, things can go from great to not so hot, to downright unspeakable, and do it so gradually that we keep downshifting our expectations to correspond with our current situation. We settle for less and less and tell ourselves,"It's not so bad", until one day we wake up and we are in effect, hairless and scabby, and just hoping to get petted with a stick for a little while.”
― Jill Conner Browne

“It’s vitally important that you buy your own crown and declare yourself Queen, and then spend the rest of your life living into that.”
― Jill Conner Browne, The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love: A Fallen Southern Belle's Look at Love, Life, Men, Marriage, and Being Prepared

“The lesson of the Funk Dog: “You can forget what it used to feel like to feel good about life; feeling rotten—or just a low-grad funk—seems normal and therefore acceptable. I just don’t believe that God intended for any of his creatures to be petted with sticks.”
― Jill Conner Browne, The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love: A Fallen Southern Belle's Look at Love, Life, Men, Marriage, and Being Prepared

“Be particular. That is, without a doubt, the Best Advice Ever Given in the History of the Entire World. Consider, if you will, the profound effect that following that advice would have on, say, your diet, your love life, your financial situation, your decision on whether to have that next drink. I mean, what do those two words not cover?”
― Jill Conner Browne, The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love: A Fallen Southern Belle's Look at Love, Life, Men, Marriage, and Being Prepared

“Rich old people are more attractive than poor old people, so by all means, try to get rich before age sets in. Otherwise, you'll just be playing catch-up for the rest of your life and that will just wear you out, let me tell you.”
― Jill Conner Browne, The Sweet Potato Queens' Big-Ass Cookbook

“If God wasn't mightily amused by our humanness, I figure he'd have wiped us out a long time ago.”
― Jill Connor Browne

“And he would say, “Y’all come when you can,” which was of no substantial pith or import, but then he would add, “Be particular.” Except he pronounced it “p’ticklar.” Be particular. That is, without a doubt, the Best Advice Ever Given in the History of the Entire World.”
― Jill Conner Brown

“Michael’s Magical Sweet Potato Muffins WHISK TOGETHER 1 cup dark brown sugar, 1/2 cup oil, 1 running-over teaspoon vanilla, and 2 eggs. Then, in another bowl, mix together 2 cups all-purpose flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon allspice, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. To that, add 2 big giant sweet potatoes—either baked or boiled—and mashed. I suppose you COULD use canned ones, but it kinda makes me gag to think about. Add your egg/sugar mixture to all of that and stir it up without beating it to death. Put it in greased muffin tins and bake for about 25 to 30 minutes at 350°F. (If you want to, you could add 1/2 cup raisins or 1 cup pecans. I’d go with the pecans—not a big fan of raisins in stuff, but that’s just me.)   Okay—I have got”
― Jill Conner Browne, American Thighs: The Sweet Potato Queens' Guide to Preserving Your Assets

“The Basic Five are these: (1) a man who can fix things, (2) a man you can dance with, (3) a man who can pay for things, (4) a man you can talk to, and (5) a man to have great sex with. As I said, this is the rudimentary team you need to form, according to our sage adviser. Certainly other functions can be added to suit your more refined tastes, but with this starting lineup, you can at least avoid abject misery.”
― Jill Conner Browne, The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love: A Fallen Southern Belle's Look at Love, Life, Men, Marriage, and Being Prepared

“there is a difference between “denial” and “delusion.” The difference is that denial is a fun game and delusion is pitiable and requires meds that you will be too delusional to enjoy.”
― Jill Conner Browne, Fat Is The New 30: The Sweet Potato Queens' Guide To Coping With (the crappy parts of) Life

“Queen of the Night Salsa 2.0 This is a jazzed-up version of an earlier recipe from our Precious Darlin’ George. He is ever seeking new and more delicious ways to please us and we adore him for this and other reasons.   MIX ALL THIS stuff together—1 15-ounce can drained and rinsed black beans, 1 11-ounce can Niblets corn, 1 small can chopped green chilis, 1 small can chopped black olives, 2 to 3 chopped fresh tomatoes, at least 8 ounces shredded Monterey Jack, 1 bunch chopped green onions, some cilantro (fresh or dried, to taste), 1/2 teaspoon chili powder, 1/2 teaspoon cumin, 1/2 to 3/4 of a 16-ounce bottle of Wishbone Robusto Italian dressing, and a whole big lot of chopped-up bacon. Obviously, the more bacon, the better—duh. Chill all that overnight in the refrigerator and then eat it all at one sitting the next day with Fritos.”
― Jill Conner Browne, American Thighs: The Sweet Potato Queens' Guide to Preserving Your Assets

“Pre-forty, you can wash your face with Tide and use Vaseline for moisturizer, toss on a little mascara and lip gloss, and you're a friggin' cover girl. Those of us on the slippery slope that is the Other Side of Forty can testify-- those days are so over. You pore over labels promising everything short of actual rebirth-- you will buy most of them for an average of $450 per quarter once-- and none of them will work. You will still be getting older and poorer with every passing purchase.”
― Jill Conner Browne, The Sweet Potato Queens' Big-Ass Cookbook

“All of a sudden, when I take my hair down, I don’t look like a flower child anymore. I look like Loretta Lynn. This is not a good look—for Loretta or me.”
― Jill Conner Browne, The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love: A Fallen Southern Belle's Look at Love, Life, Men, Marriage, and Being Prepared

“Suzanne Sugarbaker of Designing Women was so right when she said, “There’s just nothing better in life than to ride around on the back of a convertible with a crown on your head.” Words to live by.”
― Jill Conner Browne, The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love: A Fallen Southern Belle's Look at Love, Life, Men, Marriage, and Being Prepared

“They know they're supposed to do something, but they're not sure what. And you know what they do when they're not sure-- of course you do: They either do the wrong thing or they do nothing, and it's a toss up as to which is worse.”
― Jill Conner Browne, The Sweet Potato Queens' Big-Ass Cookbook

“Daddy always pointed out, it should come as no surprises to anyone that merchants want to move their wares-it's sorta what they do, after all. But that's just BUSINESS and that has nothing to do with CHRISTMAS.”
― Jill Conner Browne, Fat Is the New 30: The Sweet Potato Queens’ Guide to Coping with (the crappy parts of) Life

“in certain regions of Italy, women of ill-repute or evil looks are forbidden to enter cheese factories.”
― Jill Conner Browne, Fat Is The New 30: The Sweet Potato Queens' Guide To Coping With (the crappy parts of) Life