Southerners Quotes

It`s a tricky character, right on the edge of Uncle Remus. But, I knew how to play him right away. I knew when I read it. I just saw him -- the dignity in the character. The only time I ever worried about it was when I was doing the show Off-Broadway, and all these Southerners would come back wiping their eyes and talking about how nostalgic it made them feel. How their grandmother had a chauffeur just like that. I was like, `God damn it! I made these people nostalgic for the good ol` days!` But, then, I had some black friends see it, and they said, `Oh, my grandfather was exactly like that.` So that made me feel okay. - On the character of Hoke in Driving Miss Daisy (1989).

I`m definitely a Yankee, a New Englander at heart. Both my parents are Southerners, so they always wanted to go back to the South.

Basically there is no difference between whites and blacks, browns and yellows. I decided to think no more of people as Northerners and Southerners.

Among the American contemporaries I read with most enjoyment are several North Carolinians. I think the best poetry being written these days is being written by Southerners.

For generations, even many otherwise decent white Southerners learned to despise black people.

Their prejudice allowed white Southerners to look the other way when blacks were denied their most basic human rights, and it encouraged the worst of them to engage in unspeakable acts of cruelty and violence.