The only thing poverty does is grind down your nerve endings to a point that you can work harder and stoop lower than most people are willing to. It chips away a person's dreams to the point that the hopelessness… — Rick Bragg Copy Share Image
I began reading Harper Lee's novel in the skimpy shade of a pine outside my grandmother's house, fat beagles pressing against me, begging for attention, ignored. At dark, I kept reading, first on the couch, a bologna sandwich in one… — Rick Bragg Copy Share Image
Momma kept a garden, which sounds romantic to people who have never held a hoe — Rick Bragg Copy Share Image
“…dreaming backwards can carry a man through some dark rooms where the walls seem lined with razor blades.” — Rick Bragg Copy Share Image
But I hope I will never have a life that is not surrounded by books, by books that are bound in paper and cloth… — Rick Bragg Copy Share Image
“On every pack leaned an M16, except Lori’s. Her son was playing soldier with it in the bleachers. There was no clip in it,… — Rick Bragg Copy Share Image
Passion is something you really don't miss, after it has cooled. It is like looking at an empty bottle on the side of the… — Rick Bragg Copy Share Image
“...because dreaming backwards can carry a man through some dark rooms...” — Rick Bragg Copy Share Image
“I guess it is what you do if you grow up with warnings of damnation ringing from every church door and radio station and… — Rick Bragg Copy Share Image
“They, especially, taught me that you can't go through life not liking people because they didn't have to work as hard or come as… — Rick Bragg Copy Share Image
It is easy to be liked when the world has no jagged edges, when life is electric blankets and peach ice cream. But to… — Rick Bragg Copy Share Image
“But if she was going to live in a damn jungle, she preferred it be a damn jungle in Georgia, she always said, and… — Rick Bragg Copy Share Image
This is home and home is not something you remember, it is something you see every day and every moment. — Rick Bragg Copy Share Image
I don't think there's a difference between writing for a newspaper or magazine and doing a chapter in a book. — Rick Bragg Copy Share Image
