Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

by John Berendt

These, then, were the images in my mental gazetteer of Savannah: rum-drinking pirates, strong-willed women, courtly manners, eccentric behavior, gentle words, and lovely music. That and the beauty of the name itself: Savannah.

So traffic is obliged to flow at a very leisurely pace. The squares are our little oases of tranquillity.”

“the whole of Savannah is an oasis. We are isolated. Gloriously isolated! We’re a little enclave on the coast—off by ourselves, surrounded by nothing but marshes and piney woods.

We have a saying: 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?’”

‘When you play songs, you can bring back people’s memories of when they fell in love. That’s where the power lies.’”

‘Two tears in a bucket. Motherfuck it.’ That’s Mama, she’s a okay girl.”

“I think how peaceful it is. I think what a wonderful place this is to come to and escape from everything, to just cool out and relax and enjoy the serenity. But I never think about dead people. Looking at these old graves makes me think how generation after generation of the same family are all gathered together. And that makes me think about how life goes on,