Dogwood Blues Quotes

“Are you aware that Jesus Christ can spell? I get so tired of you spelling every slang and cuss word that crosses your mind, as though you are pulling one over on the Lord.”
― Brenda Sutton Rose, Dogwood Blues

“Farm labor had stained his hands, but music stained his heart.”
― Brenda Sutton Rose, Dogwood Blues

“The truth had lacerated him to the bone, had punctured his heart, and had ripped through his soul. The truth had slain him and tended to his wounds. The truth had hated him and loved him. The truth had opened his eyes to his own faults.”
― Brenda Sutton Rose, Dogwood Blues

“I write books with words. Numerous words. Words that stomp and stare and crush and collapse and boogie and bang and scream and laugh and manipulate. My books are a storehouse of words that form paragraphs that form chapters that form stories that form thoughts that live on long after you've read the last word.”
― Brenda Sutton Rose, Dogwood Blues

“Jasmine felt a sense of power in cooking. It was she who controlled the ingredients, she who controlled the menus, and she who controlled the fragrances that filled her home.”
― Brenda Sutton Rose, Dogwood Blues

“When a man's running, he seldom looks back.”
― Brenda Sutton Rose, Dogwood Blues

“Life can surprise you. You want something with every ounce of blood that flows in your veins, and then one day it's yours. Right there before you. Everything. You break out in a cold sweat with the undeniable realization that what you really want is home. Sometimes finding home is a long time coming. A long journey.”
― Brenda Sutton Rose, Dogwood Blues

“Sometimes we need to be knocked down so we can experience the getting up.”
― Brenda Sutton Rose, Dogwood Blues

“He had spent his life running, secrets spitting at his back. With the coach clocking him, Kevin took flight, his feet hitting the ground and pulling back with tremendous speed. Demons--visions of the eager hands of pretty boys with firm bodies--chased him, chipping away at the space separating them, their claws a whisper away from his flesh. He ran until he felt his lungs would give out; like a madman he ran.”
― Brenda Sutton Rose, Dogwood Blues

“As he farmed, hard labor left his hands callused, the sun bleached his hair, his face leathered, and his heart throbbed with music.”
― Brenda Sutton Rose, Dogwood Blues

“If he could do one thing, he could run. He had spent his life running, secrets spitting at his back.”
― Brenda Sutton Rose, Dogwood Blues

“At 2:00 sharp on the afternoon of his internment, with his body resting in a casket in the front room of his home, the pallbearers--all bridge players--stuck a deck of cards in Mr. Hampton's cold hands, shut the lid over his head, and played bridge.”
― Brenda Sutton Rose, Dogwood Blues

“I know this place like I know the calluses on my hands.”
― Brenda Sutton Rose, Dogwood Blues

“Although I wasn't there to bear witness, I imagine Lot's wife scanned the masses for her children. Perhaps she sought out the curves of their mouths and the shapes of their faces, trying to memorize her children, grown now. She looked back as I and any strong, loving mother would have done.”
― Brenda Sutton Rose, Dogwood Blues

“When his wounds cut too deep for the blues--when he couldn't sing himself out of his own sorrow--when he was too wounded to shimmy his fingers over piano keys--he came to the healing waters of the Alapaha River. And on the river he recounted his sins, confessing to the ancient rhythmic flow of the current. Communion.”
― Brenda Sutton Rose, Dogwood Blues

“A part of him died slowly, and the other part died overnight”
― Brenda Sutton Rose, Dogwood Blues

“Carrying the need to bow down and seek solace at the altar of nature, he had launched the canoe in the darkness. Tonight, his altar was the Alapaha River.”
― Brenda Sutton Rose, Dogwood Blues