Southern Man Quotes

“I watched in disbelief as businessmen voted for a repeat bankrupt, laborers for a boss infamous for stiffing his workers, evangelicals for a serial adulterer, women for an admitted sexual assaulter, patriots for a draft dodger who would sell his country’s secrets for trivial gain, educated men for an ignoramus. But they did so with fierce gladness in their hearts. Because what their chosen one had done was open Pandora’s box—yes, the old one, filled with the ancient calamities of race hatred and rage and cruelty and bloodlust and infinite greed—and tell them that these things were the remedy for all their grievances, that all their anger was justified, and most important: None of what ailed them was their own fault—or ever had been.”
― Greg Iles, Southern Man

“watched in disbelief as businessmen voted for a repeat bankrupt, laborers for a boss infamous for stiffing his workers, evangelicals for a serial adulterer, women for an admitted sexual assaulter, patriots for a draft dodger who would sell his country’s secrets for trivial gain, educated men for an ignoramus. But they did so with fierce gladness in their hearts. Because what their chosen one had done was open Pandora’s box—yes, the old one, filled with the ancient calamities of race hatred and rage and cruelty and bloodlust and infinite greed—and tell them that these things were the remedy for all their grievances, that all their anger was justified, and most important: None of what ailed them was their own fault—or ever had been. They took to that like infants to a honeyed tit.”
― Greg Iles, Southern Man

“your father said to tell you that if Judge Marston ever reached out to you in any way . . . you should have him killed. However hard that might be, you should find a way. ‘Don’t hesitate,’ Tom said.”
― Greg Iles, Southern Man

“simply went on with life, secretly knowing I lived under sentence of death. After all, doesn’t everyone live that way?”
― Greg Iles, Southern Man

“losing your last truly orphans you, unmooring you from the past, destabilizing your sense of self.”
― Greg Iles, Southern Man

“Losing your first parent is a stunning blow, jarring to the soul. But”
― Greg Iles, Southern Man

“done was open Pandora’s box—yes, the old one, filled with the ancient calamities of race hatred and rage and cruelty and bloodlust and infinite greed—and tell them that these things were the remedy for all their grievances, that all their anger was justified, and most important: None of what ailed them was their own fault—or ever had been.”
― Greg Iles, Southern Man

“I watched in disbelief as businessmen voted for a repeat bankrupt, laborers for a boss infamous for stiffing his workers, evangelicals for a serial adulterer, women for an admitted sexual assaulter, patriots for a draft dodger who would sell his country’s secrets for trivial gain, educated men for an ignoramus. But they did so with fierce gladness in their hearts. Because what their chosen one had”
― Greg Iles, Southern Man

“They’re being forced to face the fact that no one ever had it easier than their people. They were raised to believe nobody ever worked harder for success than their grandpaw or memaw, or their fourth ancestor up the line who came over from God-knows-where and fought for every scrap they got. But the truth is, they had it better than any immigrants anywhere ever did. Everybody else had it tougher. Except the Melania Trumps of the world. The refusal to let go of that myth. . . . That’s the root of white privilege, and of the threat to democracy. The irrational hell we’re living through now.”
― Greg Iles, Southern Man

“con man with almost no objective qualifications for the office. Trump had obviously racist beliefs, criminal tendencies, serious problems with women, repeated business failures, no ethics whatsoever, no conscience, no remorse. He even despised the military. Yet white America, in its panic, wrapped their arms around the guy and rode him all the way into Washington.”
― Greg Iles, Southern Man

“All that matters is that, after tonight, no one will be able to contain the most dangerous force in this country— White panic.”
― Greg Iles, Southern Man

“Life taught me long ago how thin the veneer of civilization really is, how quickly society can devolve into chaos.”
― Greg Iles, Southern Man

“The past only has the power we give it. In truth, the present devours the past like a school of piranhas, every second without cease. There’s only the ever-vanishing now.”
― Greg Iles, Southern Man

“and United Klans began their ascendancy. Back then, the situation deteriorated until the governor had no choice but to order in the National Guard, which managed to halt the descent into chaos. But as traumatic as that era was, the destruction of Tranquility and Arcadia might bring worse. The South—even the nation—is already primed for an explosion. Memphis and Mission Hill saw to that. These arsons (and the bold note claiming them as justified actions) might provide the critical mass required for detonation. But what frightens me most is something less tangible. The common fealty to American ideals—a living principle that survived even the traumatic sixties and seventies—has withered to nothing during the brief span of years since my daughter left home”
― Greg Iles, Southern Man

“Because what their chosen one had done was open Pandora’s box—yes, the old one, filled with the ancient calamities of race hatred and rage and cruelty and bloodlust and infinite greed—and tell them that these things were the remedy for all their grievances, that all their anger was justified, and most important: None of what”
― Greg Iles, Southern Man

“Confederate Memorial Park to the head of Front Street near Fort Langlois”
― Greg Iles, Southern Man

“Work by a Bienville-born historian had recently proved that on at least two occasions—even as he carried on a romance with a very young woman from Natchez—the fifty-year-old Burr had met with his attorney in McFadyen’s Tavern in Bienville.”
― Greg Iles, Southern Man

“Aaron Burr, after being arrested near Natchez on the orders of President Thomas Jefferson,”
― Greg Iles, Southern Man

“In 1936 Romulus’s grandson asked him how he felt about how the world had changed for “colored people,” and how he thought it was likely to change in the future. Romulus’s answer sounded typical of the time, and did not surprise me. But then the grandson asked him—a man saved from drowning by a Union soldier bearing a coffin—how he felt about white people in general. Romulus’s answer haunts me to this day. “Oh, there’s good white folks out there,” he said. “And when you deal with ’em by themselves, they’ll treat you just like a brother. In fact, I wouldn’t be alive today without one or two. But when you deal with ’em in groups . . . things change. I don’t know why that is, but they do.” “But you have no ill feelings against white people in general?” his grandson pressed. “How can I answer that, boy? I’m more than half-white myself! Yet all my life I been nothing but Black. One drop, right? The truth is, all people are good and bad. There ain’t many saints in this world, regardless of color. I’ve known white people good as anybody. Generous, kind, compassionate. There just ain’t quite enough of ’em.” There just ain’t quite enough of ’em.”
― Greg Iles, Southern Man

“In 1936 Romulus’s grandson asked him how he felt about how the world had changed for “colored people,” and how he thought it was likely to change in the future. Romulus’s answer sounded typical of the time, and did not surprise me. But then the grandson asked him—a man saved from drowning by a Union soldier bearing a coffin—how he felt about white people in general. Romulus’s answer haunts me to this day. “Oh, there’s good white folks out there,” he said. “And when you deal with ’em by themselves, they’ll treat you just like a brother. In fact, I wouldn’t be alive today without one or two. But when you deal with ’em in groups . . . things change. I don’t know why that is, but they do.” “But you have no ill feelings against white people in general?”
― Greg Iles, Southern Man

“Genetic debris.”
― Greg Iles, Southern Man

“As I lay on the polished stone porch of Attica, it struck me that, had Robert F. Kennedy, Sr., lived to be president, the teenage Ebony Swan might not have died hanging from the lamp hook of an antebellum plantation house in Mississippi fifty-five years later.”
― Greg Iles, Southern Man

“In 2016,” he says, “after Trump was elected, I realized that America had declined to the point that we were willing to put a complete idiot in the White House. A con man with almost no objective qualifications for the office. Trump had obviously racist beliefs, criminal tendencies, serious problems with women, repeated business failures, no ethics whatsoever, no conscience, no remorse. He even despised the military. Yet white America, in its panic, wrapped their arms around the guy and rode him all the way into Washington. Even the evangelicals went with him. And why? Because he personified all their secret hopes and fears and prejudices. He gave them permission to be their real selves. Their worst selves. In essence, he was a living ‘Fuck you’ to everyone who ever made a rube feel stupid, or small, less than the next guy. He still is. He’s the white O.J. Simpson, Penn. His supporters know he’s guilty—of all of it—but they don’t give a shit. That’s not the point for them. Anyway, the myth of my grade-school years was finally true: anybody could become president! Anybody with sufficient fame, and the willingness to say and do anything necessary to win, that is.” Bobby turns and scans the bluff once more, from habit probably,”
― Greg Iles, Southern Man

“My vision. In 2027, Israel’s leader will become convinced that Iran is fielding its nuclear arsenal. Israel will ask us to destroy that arsenal for them, using our submarines and ASW aircraft. If we refuse, Israel will attempt to do it alone. There our scenario becomes a true three-body problem. China—wishing to be seen as taking the moral high ground—announces that if we attack Iran, it will seize and hold Taiwan, arguing that Iran has just as much right to self-defense as the Israelis. At that point, the best predictions of our experts are that, if we fulfill the Israelis’ wish, we will set ourselves on the road to global nuclear war. At the very least, the U.S. president will have to disappoint our closest ally and religious cousin in the Middle East—Israel—while at worst, we might actually have to attack Israel to prevent them initiating Armageddon out of paranoia.”
― Greg Iles, Southern Man

“To white people, those mansions represent—at worst—some uncomfortable history. Easily written off as part of a ‘dead’ past. But to Black people, especially those who’ve done their research, those plantations are death camps. Not just work camps. Because the joke was the same. ‘Work Shall Make You Free.’ The only way any Jew was getting free of Auschwitz was up the chimney. Same with the enslaved in the fields run by the owners of those mansions. The only freedom was death. Even their children would be owned in perpetuity. In”
― Greg Iles, Southern Man

“To any white person older than fifty, every pixel of this image screams the end of the America they once knew and loved.”
― Greg Iles, Southern Man

“She won’t care,” Bobby finished. “Don’t you see? That’s the thing about mamas like Dixie. Same with the evangelical Republicans and their ‘family values.’ Or their positions on the deficit or communism. It’s all a lie. A cover. At bottom, it’s about money and power. The end always justifies the means. Dixie’s daughter’s the same, I’ll bet. She’d marry a gay man to be First Lady, then divorce him four or five years down the road.”
― Greg Iles, Southern Man

“I think somebody white is burning those houses to start up a second civil war down here. And what I’ve come here today to beg you not to do—is fall into their trap. It’s an old trap, brothers and sisters! They want to stir you up and make you do something they can use to prove to the world you’re everything they claim you are. They want to make you loot a store, or flip a police car, set a convenience store on fire. They want to point at you and say, ‘Look at those animals! They’ve got no respect for property. They don’t value human life the way we do.’ Folks, I know you’re too smart to let yourselves be used like that.”
― Greg Iles, Southern Man

“It’s like when Prince played the Super Bowl. The halftime producer said, ‘It’s raining, Prince! Are you sure you’re all right?’ And Prince said, ‘Can you make it rain harder?’ Then he went out and blew up the place by playing ‘Purple Rain.’ That’s what today’s gonna be for Doc.”
― Greg Iles, Southern Man

“For Bobby knew, just like every white supremacist who walked the earth, that Blacks were as human as anybody else, and their deaths counted equally in whatever karmic calculus swayed the unfolding events of the world.”
― Greg Iles, Southern Man