Reynolds Price Quotes

Life is short and often stingy; feast the heart with what it craves, short of cruelty, and let the world wonder.

Strength just comes in one brand— you stand up at sunrise and meet what they send you and keep your hair combed.

Many Americans would die naked in the middle of the road before they'd tell you what's hurt them most. But a born Southerner will show you the cell in their heart that burns the hardest. They'll hold it out to you in their bare right hand.

Stand up at sunrise and meet what they send you.

We say spending time because time costs. No moment's free. Every second, a price.

Almost all of my really good times have been silent but have had to end.

Every other way is like that -- him waiting for something to happen to him, daring somebody to do something nice such as come up and touch him just so he could say, 'Why in the world did you do that?' and hold on tight till whoever bothered him vanished -- and nothing about him since has ever surprised me.

We crave nothing less that the perfect story; And while we chatter or listen all our lives to a din of craving – jokes, anecdotes, novels, dreams, films, plays, songs, half the words of our days – We are satisfied only by the one short tale we feel to be true; History is the will of a just God who knows us.

Women then very seldom wore watches. They did their chores till the chores were finished or they fell over dead, whichever came first.

A need to tell and hear stories is essential to the species Homo sapiens--second in necessity apparently after nourishment and before love and shelter. Millions survive without love or home, almost none in silence; the opposite of silence leads quickly to narrative, and the sound of story is the dominant sound of our lives, from the small accounts of our day's events to the vast incommunicable constructs of psychopaths.

Did I think then, or do I believe later, that the vision was in any sense a direct call to me from God or some other intelligent force in nature? Was it a gesture uniquely intended to draw me near? Near to whom and for what? Am I ready to say, at this late point in my life, that I was singled out in childhood for special attention from God? No, I'm not. I think it's possible that such revelations await a good many people who are lucky enough, or careful enough, to spend solitary time in feasible places and to be prepared-consciously or accidentally-to listen to a widely available transmission.

In the next long minute, he felt an understanding spread deep down inside him, an understanding that he'd only felt with animals before--with poor old Hilda and the hawks he'd seen in tall bare trees and that buck deer, long ago in the woods, that spoke Ben's name and told him the world was a fine place to live, hard but fine.

Soon competitors did the same, such as Samuel Reynolds, who came to Maryland’s Eastern Shore in 1831 and placed an ad in the Easton Republican Star. It proclaimed that he wouldn’t leave the Easton Hotel until he bought “100 NEGROES,” “from the age of twelve to twenty-five years, for which he will give higher prices than any real purchaser that is now in the market.” Young Frederick Douglass, who was sent back from Baltimore (where he had secretly learned to read)

R.J. Reynolds owns a subsidiary called RJR Packaging, which produces packaging used on many food products for both human and pet consumption.[276] They also produce packaging for many medical devices and over-the-counter medications, as well as personal care, coffee, and confectionary products.[277] In order to remain in business, a company must be profitable. In order to remain profitable in the face of extensive, long-term compulsory levies by state governments via the tobacco settlement, the costs of products must go up so that income remains higher than expenses. Thus, Altria can raise prices on their Kraft food products you buy in order to pay off their tobacco settlement. R.J. Reynolds can pass along the cost by raising packaging costs for manufacturers of many different types of consumer products, who pass the increased production costs along to you.

The novelist Reynolds Price says there is one sentence above all that people crave from stories: The Maker of all things loves and wants me. Christians still believe in that truth.

People who live close to the land tend to harbor a sense of realism about the role of luck in their lives. Reynolds Price, a novelist and one of my college teachers, put it well: “Scratch a farmer and find the tragic sense of life. You can’t convince a farmer that life is just one big Coors beer bash . . . They live according to the laws of sun, ice, and water.” But those who are cut off from the land, except as a place to relax and recreate, are often afflicted with urban idealism. More and more people today live in a world of streets and houses and buildings and stadiums and schools. Stores and shops provide their food. All of these have been built by man, and it can lead us to an unnatural conclusion, even if we are unaware of it: that man has the potential to create a paradise.

The best thing about my life up to here is, nobody believes it. I stopped trying to make people hear it long ago, and I'm nothing but a real middle-sized white woman that has kept on going with strong eyes and teeth for fifty-seven years. You can touch me; I answer. But it got to where I felt like the first woman landed from Pluto - people asking how I lasted through all I claimed and could still count to three, me telling the truth with an effort to smile and then watching them doubt it. So I've kept quiet for years. Now I've changed my mind and will try again. Two big new reasons. Nobody in my family lives for long, and last week I found somebody I'd lost or thrown away. All he knows about me is the little he's heard. He hasn't laid eyes on me since he was a baby and I vanished while he was down for a nap. I may very well be the last thing he wants at this late date. I'm his natural mother; he's almost forty and has got on without me.

In fact, we have no firm notion of how it felt to exist in Rome, Palestine, or Asia Minor some two thousand years ago--burdened with all the assumptions and hopes of our past lives; then confronted in words by the flaming demands of a recently dead, maybe resurrected Jew named Jesus with a ravenous will to change us and the Earth.

Feasting the Heart by Reynolds Price,

His dismissal shouldn’t hurt. I’m only pretend-dating his son. I don’t even want to like Blake, and I will never meet this man again. Still, to be judged unworthy in so short a space of time really pisses me off. I at least deserve a shot. Blake vanishes into the bathroom. As I’m marshaling the nerve to try and start a polite conversation, Mr. Reynolds looks off into the distance, hoists his water glass, and lets out a sigh. “Fifty thousand dollars.” My first thought is that Blake must have told him about our deal after all. I sit in place, waiting for him to give some explanation, to make some sort of demand. But he takes a long swallow of water and doesn’t say anything more. I fold my hands in my lap. “Well?” he asks after a few interminable seconds. “I can’t wait forever.” He’s not even going to pretend to be polite, and I suspect that everything he says from here on out will only get worse. Fine. If he wants to play that way, I can come along for the ride. “No,” I say with my most charming smile. “You probably can’t. Five minutes of your time is worth a fortune. But my time is worth basically nothing. So if we want to keep staring at each other, I’ll win. Eventually.” He leans against the booth, letting his arm trail along the back. He has Blake’s wiry build, but there’s an edginess to him that Blake lacks, as if he has a low-voltage current running through him at all times. He drums his fingers against the table as if to dispel a constant case of jitters. His glare intensifies. “Cut the innocent act. If you’re smart enough to hold Blake’s interest, you’re smart enough to know what I’m talking about. My son is obviously emotionally invested in you, and I’d rather he not be hurt any more than necessary. If all you want is money, I’ll give you fifty thousand dollars to walk away right now.” I pause, considering this. On the one hand, fifty thousand dollars to walk away from a nonexistent relationship is a lot of money. On the other hand, technically, at this point, Blake has offered me more. Besides, I doubt Mr. Reynolds would ever actually pay me. He’d just spill everything to Blake, assuming that revealing my money-grubbing status would end this relationship. In other words, true to form, he’s being a dick. Surprise, surprise. “I see you’re thinking about it,” he says. “Chances are this thing, whatever it is, won’t last. We’ve established that you don’t really care about Blake. The only thing left to do is haggle over the price.” “That’s not what I’m thinking.” I pick up my own water glass and take a sip. “I think we need to make the stakes even. I’ll accept sixty-six billion dollars. I take cash, check, and nonliquid assets.” His knowing smirk fades. “Now you’re just being ridiculous.” I set my glass down. “No. I’m simply establishing that you don’t love your son, either.” He almost growls. “What the fuck kind of logic is that? Sixty-six billion dollars is materially different than fifty thousand.” The bathroom door opens behind us, and Blake starts toward us. Mr. Reynolds looks away from me in annoyance. Blake approaches the table and slides in next to me. He sits so close I can feel the warm pressure of his thigh against mine. He looks from me to his father and back. “What’s going on?” The fact that I’m not actually dating Blake, and don’t care about the state of his relationship with his terrible father, makes this extremely easy. “Your father and I,” I tell him sweetly, “are arguing over how much he’ll pay me to dump you. Stay out of this; we’re not finished yet.” “Oh.” A curiously amused look crosses Blake’s face. “He offered fifty thousand bucks,” I say. “I countered with sixty-six billion.” Blake’s smile widens. “She’s not negotiating in good faith,” Mr. Reynolds growls. “What the fuck kind of girlfriend did you bring?” “Don’t mind me.” Blake crosses his arms and leans back. “Pretend I’m not here. Carry on.

All meditations on death should be avoided, according to Reynolds Price: “Never give death a serious hearing till its ripeness forces your final attention and dignified nod.

Novelist Reynolds Price said there is one sentence all humankind craves to hear: “The Maker of all things loves and wants me.