Keep dating and you will become so sick, so badly crippled, so deformed, so emotionally warped and mentally defective that you will marry anybody. Florence King More Quotes by Florence King More Quotes From Florence King I've always said that next to Imperial China, the South is the best place in the world to be an old lady. Florence King best-place next world For men who want to flee Family Man America and never come back, there is a guaranteed solution: homosexuality is the new French Foreign Legion. Florence King want men america Affirmative action was designed originally for "women and other minorities" but the phrase has become just another tortured euphemism. Female conscientiousness and eagerness to please have always made women good students and natural test takers. Jews have gloried in scholarship throughout the ages, and Asians of both sexes score so high on SATs and IQ tests that they regard affirmative action as an impediment. Affirmative action really means favoritism for blacks for the sake of racial peace, but the favor is pure chimera, and so, increasingly, is the peace. Florence King race mean sex One of life's intriguing paradoxes is that hierarchical social order makes cheap rents and outré artists' colonies possible. Raffish bohemian neighborhoods flourished in the days of racial segregation; under integration the artistic poor have no safe places in which to create.... If America lacks a vigorous culture it is partly because studios and ateliers have become crack houses. Florence King artist order america to a Southerner it is faux pas, not sins, that matter in this world. Florence King sin matter world I don't suffer fools, and I like to see fools suffer. Florence King fool suffering inspirational 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. Florence King cigarette-smoke morning sex The feminization of America has made emotions sacrosanct while condemning as cold and unfeeling rigorous concepts such as duty andhonor. Propelled by incessant hosannas to woman's "finer" this and "softer" that, we make emotional decisions instead of ethical ones and then congratulate ourselves for having "heart. Florence King emotional heart america It takes only one child to raze a village. Florence King village children Chinks in America's egalitarian armor are not hard to find. Democracy is the fig leaf of elitism. Florence King egalitarianism women america Agoraphobia was my quirky armor against a gregarious America. Florence King quirky armor america Spinsterhood is Nature's Own Feminism. Florence King spinsterhood feminism Never look on the bright side. The glare is blinding. Florence King glare sides looks 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. Florence King southern mouths goes-on American couples have gone to such lengths to avoid the interference of in-laws that they have to pay marriage counselors to interfere between them. Florence King couple law gone Nothing is more likely to start me screaming like a madwoman than New York in February with its piles of blackened snow full of yellow holes drilled by dogs. Florence King new-york dog yellow A cardinal rule of writing is never interrupt yourself to explain something. If you must bring up an obscure topic, drop informative hints about it as you go along so that you don't end up with the entire explanation all in one place. This keeps you from skidding to a stop and sounding teacherish. Otherwise it's better to omit the obscure topic altogether, or as mothers might put it: if you can't say it interestingly, don't say it at all. Florence King topics mother writing By sending the contradictory message that the famous are just plain folks on Mount Olympus, America has forged a relentless tension between loftiness and accessibility. Stir in the fact that the inborn talent and intelligence needed to achieve fame are immune to distributive tinkering by government programs and you have a definition of fame certain to produce envious rage: somebody screwed democracy. Florence King equality government america Gradually my whole concept of time changed until I thought of a month as having twenty-five days of humanness and five others when I might just as well have been an animal in a steel trap. Florence King humanness-is steel animal When you go apartment-hunting in the South, you encounter little old ladies who ask you if you use strong drink. In New York you encounter paranoids who wonder if you will commit suicide--not that they care; what they worry about is blood on their fresh paint, a dubious smell in the hallway, or a hole in the awning as you pass through on your way to the sidewalk. The Southerner who moves to any part of the country has problems, but the culture shock that attacks the Southerner who moves North is almost indescribable. Florence King strong suicide country