Jean Shepherd Quotes

… from humanity to nationality to bestiality

The history of the race, from infancy through its stages of barbarism, heathenism, civilization, and Christianity, is a process of suffering, as the lower principles of humanity are gradually subjected to the higher.

[Polygamy is] a blot on our civilization…in a measure, a return to barbarism…contrary to the spirit of Christianity and of the civilization which Christianity has produced in the Western world.

The soldier's lot is the most melancholy relic of barbarism (next to capital punishment) that lingers on among mankind.

A certain degree of progress from the rudest state in which man is found,—a dweller in caves, or on trees, like an ape, a cannibal, an eater of pounded snails, worms, and offal,—a certain degree of progress from this extreme is called Civilization.

After all is said that can be said upon the liquor traffic, its influence is degrading upon the individual, the family, politics and business, and upon everything that you touch in this old world

The poorest county in America is Clay County, Kentucky which is 94 percent white..

From deformed parents, deformed offspring come to be.

I'm from so far back in the sticks that they had to pump the light in there.

Appalachia, my state, eastern Kentucky, has a large amount of poverty.

I was born in the poor countryside. I was raised in the countryside, planting corn and selling sweets made by my grandmother.

Despite amazing advances in fertility to help older women get pregnant, the complications, increased chances of autism, and chromosomal abnormalities are significant considerations.

Life for my family was a real struggle, as it was for most in those farming communities in Alabama.

In a sense, my grandmother was living in the Iron Age. There was no system of writing among the nomads. Metal artifacts were rare and precious.... The first time she saw a white person my grandmother was in her thirties: she thought this person's skin had burned off.

I realised that I had a choice to either feel angry about not having arms and legs, or thankful for having my family, friends and my little foot.

Civilization creates discontents; barbarism creates quick endings.

A family is but too often a commonwealth of malignants.

The African tribesman, with his complete contempt for truth and his emphasis on brutality and savagery for others but not for himself, is a no-civilization.

Our planet is being turned into a filthy and evil-smelling imperialist barrack.

A barbarian is not aware that he is a barbarian.

Like it or not, we're still a primitive tribe ruled by fears, superstition and misinformation.

I will eat grandfather for dinner.

Over-civilization and barbarism are within an inch of each other. And a mark of both is the power of medicine-men.

The first man . . . ventured to call food and nourishment the parts that had a little before bellowed and cried, moved and lived. How could his eyes endure the slaughter when throats were slit and hides flayed and limbs torn from limb? How could his nose endure the stench? How was it that the pollution did not turn away his taste, which made contact with the sores of others and sucked juices and serums from mortal wounds?

Family . . . the home of all social evil, a charitable institution for comfortable women, an anchorage for house-fathers, and a hell for children.