Quotes from Florence King

Very" is the most useless word in the English language and can always come out. More than useless, it is treacherous because it invariably weakens what it is intended to strengthen. For example, would you rather hear the mincing shallowness of "I love you very much" or the heart-slamming intensity of "I love you"?

No matter which sex I went to bed with, I never smoked on the street

Build a fence around the South and you'd have one big madhouse.

To make sure I learned the etiquette of grieving, Granny took me with her to the many funerals she attended. O Death, where is thy sting? Search me. I grew up looking at so many corpses that I still feel a faint touch of surprise whenever I see people move.

Children have no business expressing opinions on anything except Do you have enough room in the toes?

My consultants recommended several nihilists and existentialists but I rejected them all. A black turtleneck sweater does not a misanthrope make. Nihilists and existentialists tend to be bohemians, who invariably run in packs; despite their alienated stance, they have always struck me as a sociable lot who surround themselves with people because they are forever saying Nothing matters, and they need someone to say it to.

How can she grow up to be a lady if she's always got her nose in a book?

Feminists will not be satisfied until every abortion is performed by a gay black doctor under an endangered tree on a reservation for handicapped Indians.

Americans worship creativity the way they worship physical beauty - as a way of enjoying elitism without guilt: God did it.

even my different drummer heard a different drummer

In Mississippi the important thing is hooch, not bar equipment.

Nothing is more frustrating than sitting in an office amid typewriters and mimeographers when you know what deus ex machina means.

The belle is a product of the Deep South, which is a product of the nineteenth century and the Age of Romanticism. Virginia is a product of the eighteenth century. It's impossible to extract a belle from the Age of Reason.

For a girl gone wrong, you can't beat the banks of the Wabash.

There is no such thing as a fallen woman; when she steps out of her place, she always steps up.

There's no such thing as a 'writing talent.' Anyone can be taught to write a good sentence. What writers are born with is a 'third ear,' not for words but for human nature. And like people with an ear for music who can play the piano without lessons or notes, we can't explain how we know what we know — we just know.

Until feminists started wailing about the female's passivity, submissiveness, and something called 'victim status,' I had no idea women were such doormats. My childhood was populated by Eleanor Roosevelt, Amelia Earhart, Pearl Buck, Marie Curie, Clare Boothe Luce, and the Duchess of Windsor.

Now the only thing I miss about sex is the cigarette afterward. Next to the first one in the morning, it's the best one of all. It tasted so good that even if I had been frigid I would have pretended otherwise just to be able to smoke it.

You can't pretend to be witty because wit is dry, subtle, lacerating, cynical, elitist, and risque - all impossible to fake. Humor, on the other hand, is broad, soothing, positive, inclusive, and smutty - to make sure everybody gets it. Pretending to be humorous is easy, and a great many people are doing it.

Aging does not make women powerless objects of pity but colorful and entertaining individuals and, on occasion, fire-breathing dragons that wise people don't cross.

Let's face it: 'Threatening' people are the only interesting people around. The unthreatening are, by and large, competent mediocrities who take lemming-like aim at careers in television.

Let's bring back grandmothers! A real family consists of three generations. It's time Americans stopped worrying about interference and being a burden on the children and regrouped under one roof.

Time has lost all meaning in that nightmare alley of the Western world known as the American mind.

because the theater lost a Barrymore every time a Southerner decided not to go on the stage, just about anything that comes out of a Southern mouth is bound to be a ringing line.