Cajun Inspirational Quotes

Pushed times make a monkey chew pepper.~ Creole proverb. (challenging times inspire unique actions)

My favorite quote in my first book is: "We will always make mistakes, turn left when we should have gone right, but Love (God) waits patiently for us at all the wrong turns.

By now I was in the zone. I grabbed an acoustic guitar, tuned it to an open D, and sang for the guys my first draft of “Acadian Driftwood.” The song was inspired by a documentary I had seen in Montreal a while back called L’Acadie, l’Acadie, where for the first time I understood that the name “Cajun” was a southern country slurring of the word “Acadian.” The documentary told a very powerful story about the eighteenth-century expulsion by the British of the Acadians: French settlers in eastern Canada. Thousands of homeless Acadians moved to the area around Lafayette, Louisiana. When I finished playing the song through, Levon patted me on the back and said, “Now that’s some songwritin’ right there, son.” I was proud that he felt so strongly about it. “We’ve got to find the sound of Acadian-Canadian-Cajun gumbo on this one,” I told the guys. “We have to pass the vocal around like a story in an opera. There has to be the slightly out-of-tune quality of a French accordion and fiddle, the depth of a washtub bass—all blending around these open tuning chords on my guitar like a primitive symphony.” When we were recording the song, it felt as authentic as anything we’d ever done.

Imelda held out the nightshade. "This plant is both poisonous and medicinal. It can bring death with a touch, and healing when used with knowledge. Every person, like this nightshade, is comme ci, comme ça, like this, like that. Good, bad, poison, remedy. The world isn't divided into heroes and villains, but a spectrum of choices. Learn to discern who wields their poisonous nature, who uses darkness to inflict pain. And more importantly," she softened her voice, "learn to recognize who offers healing, who nurtures, even when carrying shadows.