Quotes from John Berendt

We're a very cousiny people," Mary Harty told me. "One must tread very lightly here: Everyone is kin to everyone else.

Savannah was invariably gracious to strangers, but it was immune to their charms. It wanted nothing so much as to be left alone.

By all appearances, the shooting had been self-defense or, at worst, a spur-of-the-moment crime of passion. Matters like these were traditionally settled quietly, especially when the accused was a highly respected, affluent individual with no criminal record. Savannahians were well aware of past killings in which well-connected suspects were never charged, no matter how obvious their guilt.

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.

I would presume nothing. I would take notes.

saying, I originally left the door unlocked as a matter of convenience. But pretty soon I realized that whenever the doorbell did ring, it was someone I didn't know. So the bell became a signal that a stranger was at the door. I've learned never to answer it myself when that happens, because it's likely to be a deputy sheriff wanting to serve me with some kind of paper, and of course I don't need to be home for that.

We thought it proved Savannah was cosmopolitan, that we were sophisticated enough to accept a gay man socially.

In Treasure Island , Savannah is the place where Captain John Flint, the murderous pirate with the blue face, has died of rum before the story begins. It is on his death bed in Savannah that Flint bellows his last command - Fetch aft the rum, Darby! - and hands Billy Bones a map of Treasure Island. He gave it me at Savnnah, says Bones, when he lay a-dying. The book has a drawing of Flint's map in it with an X marking the location of the buried treasure.

These, then, were the images in my mental gazetteer of Savannah: rum-drinking pirates, strong-willed women, courtly manners, eccentric behavior, gentle words, and lovely music. That and the beauty of the name itself: Savannah.

Because of my music, I have never known loneliness and never been depressed.