Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

by Fannie Flagg

You know, a heart can be broken, but it keeps on beating, just the same.

They’re terrified to sit next to a nigger and have a meal, but they’ll eat eggs that came right out of a chicken’s ass.”

No, it wasn’t death she was afraid of. It was this life of hers that was beginning to remind her of that gray intensive care waiting room.

But He only gives you what you can handle and no more…and I’ll tell you this: You cain’t dwell on sadness, oh, it’ll make you sick faster than anything in this world.”

against the tree and Idgie put her head in her lap. “You know, Ruth, I’d kill for you. Anybody that would ever hurt you, I’d kill them in a minute and never think twice about it.”

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. And I don’t ever want you to forget that. You hear me?”

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

Few people who saw this plump, pleasant-looking middle-aged, middle-class housewife out shopping or doing other menial everyday chores could guess that, in her imagination, she was machine-gunning the genitals of rapists and stomping abusive husbands to death in her specially designed wife-beater boots. Evelyn had even made up a secret code name for herself…a name feared around the world: TOWANDA THE AVENGER!

And because of her vision and insight, she became known the world over as Towanda the Magnanimous, Righter of Wrongs and Queen without Compare.

‘Oh honey, it does no good to hate. It’ll do nothing but turn your heart into a bitter root. People cain’t help being what they are any more than a skunk can help being a skunk. Don’t you think if they had their choice they would rather be something else? Sure they would. People are just weak.’

“If you cage a wild thing, you can be sure it will die, but if you let it run free, nine times out of ten it will run back home.”