Florida Quotes

“Almost everything strange washes up near Miami. ”
― Rick Riordan

“But you have to understand, mental illness is like cholesterol. There is is good kind and the bad. Without the good kind- less flavor to life. Van Gogh, Beethoven, Edgar Allen Poe, Sylvia Plath, Pink Floyd (the early Piper at the Gates of Dawn line up), scientific breakthroughs, spiritual revolution, utopian visions, zany nationalism that kills millions- wait, that’s the bad kind. Tim Dorsey (Hurricane Punch)”
― Tim Dorsey, Hurricane Punch

“A prosthetic leg with a Willie Nelson bumper sticker washed ashore on the beach, which meant it was Florida.


Then it got weird.”
― Tim Dorsey, Pineapple Grenade

“There was no Disney World then, just rows of orange trees. Millions of them. Stretching for miles And somewhere near the middle was the Citrus Tower, which the tourists climbed to see even more orange trees. Every month an eighty-year-old couple became lost in the groves, driving up and down identical rows for days until they were spotted by helicopter or another tourist on top of the Citrus Tower. They had lived on nothing but oranges and come out of the trees drilled on vitamin C and checked into the honeymoon suite at the nearest bed-and-breakfast.
"The Miami Seaquarium put in a monorail and rockets started going off at Cape Canaveral, making us feel like we were on the frontier of the future. Disney bought up everything north of Lake Okeechobee, preparing to shove the future down our throats sideways.
"Things evolved rapidly! Missile silos in Cuba. Bales on the beach. Alligators are almost extinct and then they aren't. Juntas hanging shingles in Boca Raton. Richard Nixon and Bebe Rebozo skinny-dipping off Key Biscayne. We atone for atrocities against the INdians by playing Bingo. Shark fetuses in formaldehyde jars, roadside gecko farms, tourists waddling around waffle houses like flocks of flightless birds. And before we know it, we have The New Florida, underplanned, overbuilt and ripe for a killer hurricane that'll knock that giant geodesic dome at Epcot down the trunpike like a golf ball, a solid one-wood by Buckminster Fuller.
"I am the native and this is my home. Faded pastels, and Spanish tiles constantly slipping off roofs, shattering on the sidewalk. Dogs with mange and skateboard punks with mange roaming through yards, knocking over garbage cans. Lunatics wandering the streets at night, talking about spaceships. Bail bondsmen wake me up at three A.M. looking for the last tenant. Next door, a mail-order bride is clubbed by a smelly ma in a mechanic's shirt. Cats violently mate under my windows and rats break-dance in the drop ceiling. And I'm lying in bed with a broken air conditioner, sweating and sipping lemonade through a straw. And I'm thinking, geez, this used to be a great state.
"You wanna come to Florida? You get a discount on theme-park tickets and find out you just bough a time share. Or maybe you end up at Cape Canaveral, sitting in a field for a week as a space shuttle launch is canceled six times. And suddenly vacation is over, you have to catch a plane, and you see the shuttle take off on TV at the airport. But you keep coming back, year after year, and one day you find you're eighty years old driving through an orange grove.”
― Tim Dorsey, Florida Roadkill

“I emerged into the sticky-hot evening to find Ricky smoking on the hood of his battered car. Something about his mud-encrusted boots and the way he let smoke curl from his lips and how the sinking sun lit his green hair reminded me of a punk, redneck James Dean. He was all of those things, a bizarre cross-pollination of subcultures possible only in South Florida.”
― Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

“I had a werewolf morning. Awoke with a rum hangover, imagined blood on the walls, and prayed to god it was mine.”
― Randy Wayne White, Ten Thousand Islands

“But Erin let it slide. The child was only four years old; she had a whole lifetime to learn about sadness. Today was for Dalmatians, ice cream and new dolls.”
― Carl Hiaasen, Strip Tease

“John Daly is from Arkansas, but now lives in Florida. I'm from Florida, but now I live in Arkansas. I am the inverse John Daly, and I think my golf game proves it.”
― Jarod Kintz, To be good at golf you must go full koala bear

“Golf is probably a CIA psyop. Think about it. Golf is the only thing that tames the wild FloridaMan. It turns even the hilariously hostile into the docile.”
― Jarod Kintz, To be good at golf you must go full koala bear

“The general intellectual level of South Florida is somewhere just above "functionally retarded".”
― Tucker Max

“The tree feels splintery, nasty to my touch; it feels Floridian, more reptile than vegetable, more stucco than stone. I do loathe this state, their Elba.”
― Allan Gurganus, Plays Well with Others

“The fireworks went on for nearly half an hour, great pulsing strobes, fiery dandelions and starbursts of light brightening both sky and water. It was hard to tell which was reality and which was reflection, as if there were two displays, above and below, going on simultaneously—one in space-time, mused Max, and the other in time-space.”
― Sol Luckman, Snooze: A Story of Awakening

“One rarely finds salvation in Florida.”
― Rachel Hawkins, The Heiress

“The railing of the balcony was cold but the blue-black night air was so warm in October, in Florida, it felt as if it could hold you, all that wetness like a blanket of kisses.”
― Heather Sellers

“An ax came through the door. Then two firefighters. They looked down at and assistant mall manager crying and wearing a melted toupee, sitting cross-legged next to a mall cop with a bleeding ankle and a mouth full of paper.

One of the firefighters look at the other. "Not again.”
― Tim Dorsey, When Elves Attack: A Joyous Christmas Greeting from the Criminal Nutbars of the Sunshine State

“You should not be living in places that require you to evacuate when a storm comes through.”
― Steven Magee

“Old maps make sense to me. With their strange collections of obscure landmarks. It's how we all got around when young. An hour to Gainesville. Turn off where they have the livestock fair. Then past an airport owned by my stepdad's family. A Rotunda. Tiny Horses. Dani's house. Jonesville didn't have much back then. Rosie's Bar and a Lil' Champ. Still when we saw the sign we knew we were close. "HAY!" Screamed by a face on the side of a store. We'd all yell it as we passed. For good luck. Later that sign was stolen. This created suspicions. Some asked if we had taken it. No. But we should have.”
― Damon Thomas, Some Books Are Not For Sale

“You're from Florida. There's got to be more holes to hell in Florida than any other state.”
― T. Kingfisher, The Hollow Places

“Colin Studwell, a visionary 27-year-old CEO, leads the way in the behavioral health sector. With 500 employees and 20,000 patients, his company's growth is astonishing.”
― Colin Studwell

“The idea that DeSantis single-handedly made Florida a conservative paradise, they quietly griped, was complete fiction.”
― Matt Dixon, Swamp Monsters: Trump vs. DeSantis—the Greatest Show on Earth

“Pickleball is a sport most people have never heard of but is a big deal in Florida's retirement communities. It is a geriatric version of tennis played with Ping-Pong paddles and a Whiffle Ball on a court similar to a badminton court...
Jeff Laughlin, a North Carolina sportswriter, visited a pickleball match and reported that "the absurdity of the name can only be rivaled by the absurdity of the sport itself." Because the rackets are pretty lightweight and the Whiffle Ball is, well, a Whiffle Ball, no on can hit the ball hard enough to get it past an opposing player. The result is a game featuring "long, arduous volleys" that seem to end mainly once someone gets tired of swinging the racket or it's time for lunch. Laughlin characterizes the sport as "incredibly easy and boring," but to aficionados, apparently, it is a great way to work up a thirst for an afternoon martini.”
― James D. Wright, A Florida State of Mind: An Unnatural History of Our Weirdest State

“Pedestrians have the right-of-way in all cases, but that is little comfort if you get run over.”
― James D. Wright, A Florida State of Mind: An Unnatural History of Our Weirdest State

“One commentator, Allison Ford, writes, "Florida's reputation as a weirdo wonderland propels its news into the national spotlight more often. . . . We love to laugh at Florida, but we also love to go there and give them our money. That makes Floridians laugh, too-- all the way to the bank, where there's probably an alligator in the toilet.”
― James D. Wright, A Florida State of Mind: An Unnatural History of Our Weirdest State

“For the better part of seven decades, watching rockets launch from Cape Canaveral has been a major tourist attraction, a favorite activity of locals, and a taken-for-granted part of Florida life. Few experiences in this lifetime are as awe-inspiring as watching a rocket launch not more than five miles from the launch site. When NASA lights the fuse on these babies, the solid rocket boosters blast the payload into space with several million pounds of thrust. Words cannot adequately describe the sight, sound, and feel of one of these events-- like the Grand Canyon and oral sex, it must be experienced to be appreciated.”
― James D. Wright, A Florida State of Mind: An Unnatural History of Our Weirdest State

“The shuttle would announce its arrival with the trademark double sonic boom-- Boom, BOOM!!-- and shortly thereafter you could see the bright silvery craft dropping from the sky. Space enthusiasm in the state has dimmed somewhat sine the final return of the Space Shuttle on July 21, 2011, but even now, there are traffic jams on the access roads whenever a launch is scheduled. If you are within five miles of the launch site, the sky lights up, the ground rumbles, the crowds cheer, and waves of unrepentant patriotism surge through your body.”
― James D. Wright, A Florida State of Mind: An Unnatural History of Our Weirdest State

“Sanibel Island is an alluring paradox. A primordial landscape, buzzing with tourists. A tropical hideaway where storybook sunsets heal souls, and violent hurricanes destroy property. A cherished corner of Old Florida, in the midst of a modernizing metamorphosis. Where unfettered wildness thrives, even as ecological challenges mount. A dream place where I can explore the boundaries between coastal textures, the rhythm of nature, and the stuff of humankind; and create art that is honest and authentic.”
― Eric J. Taubert

“The house is designed in the way of old Florida houses to be as dark as possible. The blinds are down and brown linoleum puffs up under my bare feet. By the door, there is a pile of shoes, and the floor beneath is covered in gray grit, relics from beach days. The furniture is mostly dark wood, chipped, missing knobs or panels, and full of plastic cups, dishes, newspapers, wires, grocery bags. Socks, notebooks, flashcards, receipts, coins are littered along the hallway. I notice a few curled shells of dead roaches in the carpet borders.”
― dizz tate, Brutes

“There is a specifically Floridian smell, the stink of America (microwaved plastic, air freshener, hot oil) mixed with mildew and something else, something ancient, rotting, and sweaty, possibly life. I want to lie down in the hallway and close my eyes. The smell is so familiar it's like I'm rocking back in the womb”
― Dizz Tate, Brutes

“I have ignored her weird messages for a long time, although she has started sending them more frequently over the past year. Long links that take up the whole of my phone screen directing me to incomprehensible forums with names like "The Truth About Bigfoot." Expired video links, blurry photos. I used to send back thumbs-up emojis without looking at them.”
― Dizz Tate, Brutes

“Florida's weather on the coast comes in, wipes you out like a giant with a weed whacker and zips out. Maine winters creep in like a python on little cat feet, take years to squeeze the life out of you, and never seem to leave.”
― Robert Karl Skoglund