"Black magic never stops. What goes from you comes to you. Once you start this shit, you gotta keep it up. Just like the utility bill. Just like the grocery store. Or they kill you. You got to keep it up. Two, five, ten, twenty years."
— John Berendt (Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil)

"By morning she was dead. She had not dies 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 (Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil)

""This town is like Gone with the Wind on mescaline!" From Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil."
— John Berendt

"What do you read?

I read what friends tell me is good. This explains the book's success, partially. It got very good reviews. Good reviews will get you a readership right away, but that's it. The review or the article appears one day in a magazine or a newspaper, then it's gone. Word of mouth is a continuing phenomenon, much more powerful."
— John Berendt