Whiskey in a Teacup: What Growing Up in the South Taught Me About Life, Love, and Baking Biscuits

by Reese Witherspoon

“whiskey in a teacup.” We may be delicate and ornamental on the outside, she said, but inside we’re strong and fiery.

Leave at a reasonable hour. Never be the last person to leave a party.

We don’t always think to include dates and full names on our photos, because of course we know who the people are and roughly when each picture was taken. But decades from now, our family members will come across the photos and be baffled unless we’ve taken a few seconds to annotate them.

The entertainment at our school functions wouldn’t be some random garage band but rather famous country singers such as Brooks & Dunn, Amy Grant, or Emmylou Harris.

A lot of key moments in life are like that: You can be nervous as all get out. Just drink a beer and do it anyway.

One of the things we did for a girlfriend of mine was that each of us had to bring a piece of fabric for the baby that meant something to us. We told the story of what it meant, and then all the pieces of fabric were sewed into a quilt for the baby. Now

My mother made sure we knew it was a necessity to be extra-nice to people doing the hard jobs that make other people more comfortable, like waiters, salespeople, and hotel workers.

The natural sugars in sweet corn turn to starch soon after picking, so pick it or buy it from a farm stand the day you plan to cook

My favorite book is Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair.

Birds of America was a really important book for me in my early twenties, because it was so insightful about how women make decisions and how we all have different attitudes toward relationships. Similarly, I find Ann Patchett’s This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage endlessly inspiring.

And then of course there’s Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, The Little Friend, and The Goldfinch.

I love Julia Reed’s books. They have hilarious titles, such as But Mama Always Put Vodka in Her Sangria!

The Alice Network by Kate Quinn The Lying Game by Ruth Ware Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine Braving the Wilderness by Brené Brown The Light We Lost by Jill Santopolo Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal Happiness: A Memoir: The Crooked Little Road to Semi-Ever After by Heather Harpham

And you have to drink American beer on the Fourth of July. You have to. It’s a rule. And eat hot dogs. Even if you don’t like them. No arguing. You have to. Salads tomorrow. But on the Fourth, it’s all macaroni and cheese, hot dogs and hamburgers, and American beer. That’s it. God bless America.