“Daddy gave me real useful information to protect me in the real world. If anyone hits me, I'm not to hit them back. I wait until their back is turned, then hit them in the head with a brick.”

“It's funny, when you're a child you think time will never go by, but when you hit about twenty, time passes like you're on the fast train to Memphis. I guess life just slips up on everybody. It sure did on me.”

“Hazel: Listen babe you have to search for your luck it's nice if it just falls in your lap but I look for my lucky pennies. ... Maggie: What do you do with all your pennies Hazel: I give them away. It's good to spread your luck around and it always comes back to you.”

“I love your stories. Tell me a story, Idgie. Go on, you old bee charmer. Tell me a good tall tale. Tell me the one about the lake. ~Ruth Jamison”

“That's what I'm living on now, honey, dreams, dreams of what I used to do.”

“Albert and I would spend hours and hours looking at them. Cleo had this big magnifying glass on his desk, and we'd find centipedes and grasshoppers and beetles and potato bugs, ants . . . and put them in a jar and look at them. They have the sweetest little faces and the cutest expressions. After we'd looked at them all we wanted to, we'd put them in the yard and let them go on about their business.”

“Remember if people talk behind your back, it only means you are two steps ahead.”