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Willie Morris Quotes

I came across a photograph of him not long ago... his black face, the long snout sniffing at something in the air, his tail straight and pointing, his eyes flashing in some momentary excitement. Looking at a faded

I came across a photograph of him not long ago... his black face, the long snout sniffing at something in the air, his tail straight and pointing, his eyes flashing in some momentary excitement. Looking at a faded photograph taken more than forty years before, even as a grown man, I would admit I still missed him.

Willie Morris
Dog, Taken, Eye
Willie Morris (2008). “My Dog Skip”, p.3, Vintage

It took me years to understand that words are often as important as experience, because words make experience last.

Willie Morris
Years, Important, Lasts
Willie Morris (1970). “North toward home”, Yoknapatawpha Pr

The dog of your boyhood teaches you a great deal about friendship, and love, and death: Old Skip was my brother. They had buried him under our elm tree, they said-yet this wasn't totally true. For he really lay buried in my heart.

Willie Morris
Friendship, Family, Dog

My mother's people, the people who captured my imagination when I was growing up, were of the Deep South - emotional, changeable, touched with charisma and given to histrionic flourishes. They were courageous under tension and unexpectedly tough beneath their wild eccentricities, for they had and unusually close working agreement with God. They also had an unusually high quota of bullshit.

Willie Morris
Mother, Growing Up, Emotional

I have always had a love for American geography, and especially for the landscapes of the South. One of my pleasures has been to drive across it, with no one in the world knowing where I am, languidly absorbing the thoughts and memories of old moments, of people vanished now from my life.

Willie Morris
Memories, Knowing, People
Willie Morris (2011). “The Courting of Marcus Dupree”, p.20, Univ. Press of Mississippi

As with many Southern Writers, I believe that the special quality of the land itself indelibly shapes the people who dwell upon it.

Willie Morris
Believe, Land, People
Willie Morris (2011). “The Courting of Marcus Dupree”, p.20, Univ. Press of Mississippi

When a writer knows home in his heart, his heart must remain subtly apart from it.

Willie Morris
Home, Writing, Heart
Willie Morris (2012). “Yazoo: Integration in a Deep-Southern Town”, p.27, University of Arkansas Press

When I started driving our old four-door green DeSoto, I always took Skip on my trips around town. I would get Skip to prop himself against the steering wheel, his black head peering out of the windshield, while I crouched out of sight under the dashboard. Slowing the car to ten or fifteen, I would guide the steering wheel with my right hand while Skip, with his paws, kept it steady. As we drove by the Blue Front Café, I could hear one of the men shout: "Look at that ol' dog drivin' a car!"

Willie Morris
Funny, Dog, Men
Willie Morris (2008). “My Dog Skip”, p.11, Vintage

I can think of no one more qualified to write about the modern South than Curtis Wilkie

Willie Morris
Writing, Thinking, Modern

The Halifax area has long played a major role in Canada's military operations, being the port of departure for convoys, naval task forces and army units over the past 100 years or so.

Willie Morris
Military, Army, Past

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