Bobbie Ann Mason Quotes

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Bobbie Ann Mason

Profession : Novelist

Birth : May 1, 1940

Reading is so private, and it is often a reader's habit to finish a book, close the covers, and plunge into the next one without a backward glance.

Bobbie Ann Mason

We had a cistern for water. My grandmother churned butter and made lye soap. She and my mother did the washing in a wash kettle outdoors, using a fire to heat the water. That's the way they did the wash until the 1950s.

Bobbie Ann Mason

You have to realize that, when it comes to the South, we carry around a lot of baggage. The South lost the war, and I spent years denying my culture.

Bobbie Ann Mason

I was very bookish and shy. I didn't have playmates, ever.

Bobbie Ann Mason

With the accent, it's an internal dialogue that Southerners have with themselves. We kind of carry around that shame, that feeling of being inferior to the North. I think I did lose some of the accent for a while. Because when I was a graduate student, I was terrified at having to get up in front of a roomful of smart New York kids.

Bobbie Ann Mason

Bruce Springsteen's world is where everybody did these terrible jobs, if they had jobs at all, and he wanted something better.

Bobbie Ann Mason

Writing a novel about World War II and the French Resistance was a challenge both sobering and thrilling.

Bobbie Ann Mason

I'm not very articulate. The reason I write is because I don't talk.

Bobbie Ann Mason

Some people will stay at home and be content there. Others are born to run. It's that conflict that fascinates me.

Bobbie Ann Mason

I grew up on popular music, and rock-and-roll expresses very deep feelings of those people who don't have a lot.

Bobbie Ann Mason

It was important for me to understand who I am and where I came from. To get a hold on why I do certain things.

Bobbie Ann Mason