Chimes from a Cracked Southern Belle Quotes

“Women try to leave, over and over they try to leave and the bad wolf brings them back and dumps them in a pot of boiling water, cooking their souls and frying their resolve until nothing is left. He promises to kill them if they don’t stay. And when they stay, like good dogs, he’ll beat them and rip their skins and break their bones but he won’t kill them. Not usually. He reserves the knives and bullets, vans and screwdrivers for when she gets brave enough to take out a restraining order and show a little power. This infuriates him. He decides to put her in her place. Once and for all. That’s just the way it is. The way it will always be.”
― Susan Reinhardt, Chimes from a Cracked Southern Belle

“said. “Life gets hard when a woman hits her mid to late 30s. I told you it’s the Uglying Up years. The wrinkles come and the arm fat. The hangy-down thing on most necks.”
― Susan Reinhardt, Chimes from a Cracked Southern Belle

“After a while, a woman can find the satin edges of grace in tragedy’s wool blanket.”
― Susan Reinhardt, Chimes from a Cracked Southern Belle

“He asked my aunt, said, ‘Hon, could you get your guitar out and sang us a purty song?’ Aunt Faye was a’ fanning herself with a big old flap of cardboard and told him, ‘I’m too hot to move,’ and he picked up his shotgun and blowed her right off the porch and up to Jesus.”
― Susan Reinhardt, Chimes from a Cracked Southern Belle

“It took an entire month for Miranda’s jaundice to clear up, and three more months for her skin to lighten from brownish orange to olive and for her black hair to fade to a softer brown. I will admit she did, indeed, appear to be Mexican. But that’s no reason for a husband to accuse a woman of cheating. He ruined the birth. Up and ruined it.”
― Susan Reinhardt, Chimes from a Cracked Southern Belle

“I’m saying this is the South. And we’re proud of our crazy people. We don’t hide them up in the attic. We bring ‘em right down to the living room and show ‘em off. No one in the South ever asks if you have crazy people in your family. They just ask what side they’re on.” – Dixie Carter, better known as Julia Sugarbaker of Designing Women.”
― Susan Reinhardt, Chimes from a Cracked Southern Belle

“Most of us need a good ride on the Sin Wagon, and if I were to meet a man who was better looking than say, Yoda, I might treat him to some Serta hospitality. I’d like to have said this to Mama but could not because she is certain that a real Southern lady doesn’t enjoy the business at hand.”
― Susan Reinhardt, Chimes from a Cracked Southern Belle