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John Berendt Quotes

Keep a diary, but don't just list all the things you did during the day. Pick one incident and write it up as a brief vignette. Give it color, include quotes and dialogue, shape it like a story with a beginning, middle

Keep a diary, but don't just list all the things you did during the day. Pick one incident and write it up as a brief vignette. Give it color, include quotes and dialogue, shape it like a story with a beginning, middle and end—as if it were a short story or an episode in a novel. It's great practice. Do this while figuring out what you want to write a book about. The book may even emerge from within this running diary.

John Berendt
Running, Book, Writing

If you go to Atlanta, the first question people ask you is, "What's your business?" In Macon they ask, "Where do you go to church?" In Augusta they ask your grandmother's maiden name. But in Savannah the first question people ask you is "What would you like to drink?"

John Berendt
Grandmother, Atlanta, Names
"Even in the Best of Cities" by Jonathan Yardley, www.washingtonpost.com. February 06, 1994.

Loneliness is not being alone, It's loving others to no avail.

John Berendt
Love, Loneliness, Loving Others
John Berendt (2005). “The City of Falling Angels”, Penguin Group USA

Someone once wrote that musicians are touched on the shoulder by God, and I think it's true. You can make other people happy with music, but you can make yourself happy too. Because of my music, I have never known loneliness and never been depressed.

John Berendt
Loneliness, Thinking, People
John Berendt (2010). “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”, p.106, Vintage

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.

John Berendt
Numbers, Want, Sticks
John Berendt (2010). “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”, p.62, Vintage

Nothing can be said, including this statement, that has not been said before.

John Berendt
Said, Including, Statements
John Berendt (2006). “The City of Falling Angels”, p.39, Penguin

For me, Savannah's resistance to change was its saving grace. The city looked inward, sealed off from the noises and distractions of the world at large. It grew inward, too, and in such a way that its people flourished like hothouse plants tended by an indulgent gardener. The ordinary became extraordinary. Eccentrics thrived. Every nuance and quirk of personality achieved greater brilliance in that lush enclosure than would have been possible anywhere else in the world.

John Berendt
Cities, People, Personality
John Berendt (2010). “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”, p.454, Vintage

The megaselling books by celebrities are not so much books as products.

John Berendt
Book, Products

Two tears in a bucket. Motherfuck it.

John Berendt
Two, Tears, Buckets
John Berendt (2010). “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”, p.127, Vintage

By morning she was dead. She had not died of starvation or committed suicide by any conventional means. She had simply willed herself to die, and being a strong-willed woman, she had succeeded. She had missed dying on her birthday by two days.

John Berendt
Suicide, Strong, Morning

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