God Save Texas Quotes

“In every generation until mine, most of humanity lived with the night sky. As people began moving into cities and using more illumination, the sky gradually disappeared. There must be a corresponding loss of wonder without the stars to remind us where we stand in creation.”
― Lawrence Wright, God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State

“One can drive across Texas and be in two different states at the same time: AM Texas and FM Texas. FM Texas is the silky voice of city dwellers in the kingdom of NPR. It is progressive, blue, reasonable, secular, and smug—almost like California. AM Texas speaks to the suburbs and the rural areas—Trumpland. It’s endless bluster and endless ads. Paranoia and piety are the main items on the menu. Alex Jones is Texas’s main contribution”
― Lawrence Wright, God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State

“The largest secessionist page, “Heart of Texas,” was among the Russian propaganda sites that Facebook shut down; it had more followers than the official Texas Democrat and Texas Republican party Facebook pages combined.”
― Lawrence Wright, God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State

“I think Texas has nurtured an immature political culture that has done terrible damage to the state and to the nation. Because Texas is a part of almost everything in modern America—the South, the West, the Plains, Hispanic and immigrant communities, the border, the divide between the rural areas and the cities—what happens here tends to disproportionately affect the rest of the nation. Illinois and New Jersey may be more corrupt, Kansas and Louisiana more dysfunctional, but they don’t bear the responsibility of being the future.”
― Lawrence Wright, God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State

“The danger in holding on to a myth is that it becomes like a religion we’ve stopped believing in. It no longer instructs us; it only stultifies is. And besides, what do we want with a myth that makes us into people we don’t want to be?”
― Lawrence Wright, God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State

“morem pellis hispidus distentione nervorum—”
― Lawrence Wright, God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State

“There is a lesson to be drawn from Houston’s career as a populist leader. He would twice be elected president of the Republic of Texas, which his decisive victory had secured. After Texas entered the Union, on December 29, 1845, Houston became one of the first two U.S. senators from the state of Texas. He clearly envisioned the disaster that the proposed Southern Confederacy would inflict on the nation and on Texas: “I see my beloved South go down in the unequal contest, in a sea of blood and smoking ruin.” In 1860, on the eve of the Civil War, he was elected governor as a Unionist, but the secessionists were more powerful. Houston’s faith in populism as a force for progress was shattered. “Are we ready to sell reality for a phantom?” Houston vainly asked, as propagandists and demagogues fanned the clamor for secession with deluded visions of victory. To those who demanded that he join the Confederacy, Houston responded, “I refuse to take this oath…I love Texas too well to bring civil strife and bloodshed upon her.” Houston was evicted as governor, and the bloodshed”
― Lawrence Wright, God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State

“Greg Abbott was a great track star in high school, having never lost a race, but in 1984 a tree fell on him while he was jogging through the wealthy enclave of Houston’s River Oaks, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. He had just graduated from law school and had no health insurance. Fortunately, he won a $9 million judgment from the homeowner whose tree had fallen, and from the tree company that had inspected the tree and failed to recommend its removal. Later, as a member of the Texas Supreme Court, and then as attorney general, Abbott supported measures that capped pain-and-suffering damages in medical malpractice cases at $250,000.”
― Lawrence Wright, God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State

“Indeed, it’s an irony that the figure who most embodies the values people associate with the state is a narcissistic Manhattan billionaire now sitting in the Oval Office.”
― Lawrence Wright, God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State

“You’ve got East Texas, which is Creole, with the field greens and okra. In West Texas you have the Hispanic influence and the chiles. North Texas, you had the cattle drives. In the south and the Gulf, I wanted to give the sense of a true Southern fishing camp. Then in Central Texas you have the Czech and German influences.”
― Lawrence Wright, God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State

“The cartel wars in Juarez made it the most dangerous city in the world between 2008 and 2012, even worse than Baghdad. More than 10,000 people were slain during that period. When Monica and I visited, Juarez was experiencing another killing spree, with nearly a hundred murders in October alone. Throughout Mexico, the homicide rate had surged to 18 percent over the previous year. Everyone on both sides of the river was on edge.
Downtown Juarez was desolate. Monica pointed out the pink crosses on the lampposts. Since the 1990s, hundreds of Juarez women, most of the teenagers, have been kidnapped, many of them in plain sight on the streets where we were standing. Some of their bodies have turned up in mass graves. Each of the crosses on the lampposts represents one of the missing women.”
― Lawrence Wright, God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State

“I'm in a group that puts up statues in Austin, and our most recent work was a bronze Willie, holding Trigger, that now graces the entry to the Austin City Limits studio. I got to pose for that statue, holding a Martin guitar of the same model, N-20. Clete Shields, of Philadelphia, was our sculptor. In 2011, when the statue was cast and delivered to Austin, we covered it with a parachute and stored it in a movie studio until it could be installed. One night, Willie came by for a private unveiling. He was gracious but a little overwhelmed as he exchanged a long look with himself. Bill Wittliff, who is on our committee, explained that what we liked about this piece was its engagement with the audience. "People will come to you," he said. "Little children will touch your knee and seek your counsel."
"Do what I say and not what I do," Willie advised.”
― Lawrence Wright, God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State

“South of Marfa is the road to Big Bend, one of the least visited national parks in the country, and also one of the most glorious. On the way, there is a pleasant resort, Cibolo Creek Ranch, built around several old forts inside the crater of an extinct volcano. Roberta and I once stayed there in the off-season, midsummer, and spent out time chasing hummingbirds and the adorable vermilion flycatcher. In more temperate weather, the ranch has served as a getaway for celebrities, including Mick Jagger, Tommy Lee Jones and Bruce Willis.”
― Lawrence Wright, God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State

“With more than a million Texans licensed to carry handguns, the state is actually far behind Florida, with 1.7 million. "I'm EMBARRASSED," Governor Greg Abbott tweeted in 2015; "Texas #2 in nation for new gun purchases, behind CALIFORNIA. Let's pick up the pace Texans. @NRA”
― Lawrence Wright, God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State

“An eccentric feature of the new gun laws is that people entering the state capitol can skip the long lines of tourists waiting to pass through metal detectors if they show the guards a license-to-carry permit. In other words, the people most likely to bring weapons into the building aren't scanned at all. Many of the people who breeze through are lawmakers or staffers who actually do tote concealed weapons into the offices and onto the floor of the legislature. But some lobbyists and reporters have also obtained gun licenses just to skirt the lines.
I'm one of those people.”
― Lawrence Wright, God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State

“In Austin, we don't have such high expectations of chihuahuas.”
― Lawrence Wright, God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State

“Are we ready to sell reality for a phantom?” Houston vainly asked, as propagandists and demagogues fanned the clamor for secession with deluded visions of victory. To”
― Lawrence Wright, God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State