Rita Mae Brown: Possession of a secret is no guarantee of its truth.

It's a big jump from smart to motherwit.

Rita Mae Brown

intelligence smart bigs

English is weak in describing emotional states or intensities of interpersonal relationships.

Rita Mae Brown

emotional language weak

We have the ability to be the Athens of modern times as opposed to the militaristic Sparta. I remind you that the Athenians wrote poetry. The Spartans did not.

Rita Mae Brown

sparta athens modern

Language is decanted and shared. If only one person is left alive speaking a language - the case with some American Indian languages - the language is dead. Language takes two and their multiples.

Rita Mae Brown

alive language two

Oh well, maybe the only beauty left in cities is in the oil slicks on the road and maybe there isn't any beauty left in the people who live in these places.

Rita Mae Brown

oil cities people

Alcohol is an allergy of the body and an obsession of the mind.

Rita Mae Brown

alcohol drinking mind

You're nothing in America if you don't have debt.

Rita Mae Brown

debt ifs america

Trouble is said to be good for an artist's soul but almost never is.

Rita Mae Brown

artist soul trouble

I think in the years to come what Reagan will be remembered for is that he had the chance to stop the plague and he chose not to because the 'right people' were dying.

Rita Mae Brown

people years thinking

I don't want to die. I think death is a greatly overrated experience.

Rita Mae Brown

overrated want thinking

The dead are the only people to have permanent dwellings.

Rita Mae Brown

permanent dwelling people

Where there is no faith, devils are a necessity.

Rita Mae Brown

devil

The only merciful thing about drug abuse is the speed with which it devastates you. Alcoholics can take decades to destroy themselves and everyone they touch. The drug addict can accomplish this in a year or two. Of course, suicide is even more efficient.

Rita Mae Brown

suicide two years

I do think women avoid power. Power assumes responsibility and accountability, and I think many, many women want to have it both ways.

Rita Mae Brown

accountability responsibility thinking

I love literature, the English language and storytelling. I also have thirty horses and seventy foxhounds to feed.

Rita Mae Brown

horse language literature

American hunting is quite different from English hunting because we don't hunt to kill. Even if I wanted to kill a fox, I couldn't. They're too smart and they have too many ways to escape me, whereas they don't in England.

Rita Mae Brown

hunting smart foxes

One thing Mom taught me, "You're going to be dead a long time, so do it now!"

Rita Mae Brown

taught mom long

I always feel bad for those who, in a sense, cede their authority to others, let others make major decisions about their life and actually believe them. When you're tiny, you have no choice. But as soon as your mind starts working, you pretty well figure it out. And you realize you're a hostage until you're old enough to leave. But as long as you have that goal - I will get out of here - you'll be OK.

Rita Mae Brown

goal long believe

I had to learn the image is not the word, which is a jolt for a literary soul. But it has served me well in terms of understanding plot, in terms of watching actors develop characters.

Rita Mae Brown

understanding soul character

Knowing Latin and having two years of Attic Greek gave me the strong foundation upon which I've built a career. I think the classical training, more than anything, has provided me with longevity.

Rita Mae Brown

strong latin thinking