Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

by Fannie Flagg

Happy as a lark,

She saw the good in everything.

“You never saw anybody hurt so much.

she never did cry. She was too hurt to cry …. You know, a heart can be broken, but it keeps on beating, just the same.

She had been a good girl, had always acted like a lady, never raised her voice,

Evelyn wondered where her group was, the place where she fit in

Their generation seemed to be on a fence, not knowing which way to jump.

it’s funny how people do things they ought not to do.

perfect strangers, in this small space, sharing what was probably the most intimate and painful moment of their lives, not knowing how to act or what to say.

Poor people, terrified like herself, trying to be brave, chatting on about their everyday lives, completely in shock, pretending everything was all right.

put the truth as far away from them as possible and try to ease the pain.

All those calm, adult discussions. When all she really wanted to do was scream

She still woke up crying over the guilt, and there was not a way in the world she could ever make up for it.

her sense of failure swept over her like a five-hundred-pound wave; and she was scared.

Let’s start one by one, and you tell me some of the things that are bothering you.”

I’m too young to be old and too old to be young. I just don’t fit anywhere.

stop worrying about your weight and be thankful you’re healthy!

I’m too busy being grateful for His blessings—why, I’ve had so many blessings I cain’t even count them.

“But you seem so happy, like you never had a care in the world.”

thought. “Oh honey, I’ve buried my share, and each one hurt as bad as the last one.

so many sorrowful burdens, to the point where I thought I just couldn’t ...

By the way, does anybody out there want to buy a slightly used husband, cheap?

She wouldn’t let anybody get too close to her. When she thought that somebody liked her too

much, she’d just take off in the woods. She broke hearts right and left.

Idgie’s heart started pounding so hard it almost knocked her over.

she was as happy as anybody who is in love in the summertime can be.

all these feelings that she had been trying to hold back came flooding through her, and it was at that second in time that she knew she loved Idgie with all her heart.

Eva had the extreme luxury in life of not caring about what people thought of her.

these hard times, he made us forget our trouble for a little while, and gave us a smile.

You never know what’s in a person’s heart until they’re tested, do you?”

There are magnificent beings on this earth, son, that are walking around posing as humans.

“But young girls are funny. They want dash and sparkle and romance.

“I just wonder how many people never get the one they want, and wind up with the one they’re supposed to be with.

in all those years of marriage I can honestly say that there was never an unkind word passed between us.

Everything you could possibly want in a man.

looked out the window and screamed so loud that it scared poor Biddie Louis Otis nearly half to death.

He vowed that he would never take another drink and would never, ever get involved in an all-night poker game with strangers.

There had not been a day when Ruth had not thought about her.

she had appointed herself president of the “I’m Better Than Anyone Else Club,”

But she was a lot stronger than people knew. Everybody was always treating Ruth like a china doll, but you know, she was a lot stronger than Idgie in many ways.”

you never know a man until you live with him.”

So she had lived with that guilt and taken the beatings and the insults because she thought she deserved them.

He looked Idgie right in the eye. “And I’ll guaran-damn-tee you they won’t be back,”

He had only agreed to cooperate if he could be in charge of the photograph.

Forty-eight years old is just a baby!

If there is such a thing as complete happiness, it is knowing that you are in the right place,

finally looking at herself and asking the questions she had avoided for fear of the answers.

She had stayed a virgin so she wouldn’t be called a tramp or a slut; had married so she wouldn’t be called an old maid; faked orgasms so she wouldn’t be called frigid; had children so she wouldn’t be called barren; had not been a feminist because she didn’t want to be called queer and a man hater; never nagged or raised her voice so she wouldn’t be called a bitch … She had done all that and yet, still, this stranger had dragged her into the gutter

with the names that men call women when they are angry.

To be called cunt? People didn’t call blacks names anymore, at least not to their faces. Italians weren’t wops or dagos, and there were no more kikes, Japs, chinks, or spies in polite conversation.