The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty is a collection of short stories by Eudora Welty, first published by Houghton Mifflin in 1980. Its first paperback edition (Harvest Books) won a 1983 U.S. National Book Award.
Collected Stories demonstrates the author's ability to write from the point of view of diverse characters ranging from Aaron Burr to a deaf black servant boy, a traveling salesmen, eccentric Southern matrons, and countless others.
Famous quotes containing the words eudora welty, collected, stories and/or welty:
“... my mother ... piled up her hair and went out to teach in a one-room school, mountain children little and big alike. The first day, some fathers came along to see if she could whip their children, some who were older than she. She told the children that she did intend to whip them if they became unruly and refused to learn, and invited the fathers to stay if they liked and she’d be able to whip them too. Having been thus tried out, she was a great success with them after that.”
—Eudora Welty (b. 1909)
“I didn’t realize you were an art collector. I thought you just collected corpses. I’ll bet you paid plenty for this little piece of sculpture. She’s worth every dollar of it, take it from me. She puts her heart into her work, in fact, her whole body.”
—Ernest Lehman (b. 1920)
“Every one of my friends had a bad day somewhere in her history she wished she could forget but couldn’t. A very bad mother day changes you forever. Those were the hardest stories to tell. . . . “I could still see the red imprint of his little bum when I changed his diaper that night. I stared at my hand, as if they were alien parts of myself . . . as if they had betrayed me. From that day on, I never hit him again.””
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“I believe the alphabet is no longer considered an essential piece of equipment for traveling through life. In my day it was the keystone to knowledge. You learned the alphabet as you learned to count to ten, as you learned “Now I lay me” and the Lord’s Prayer and your father’s and mother’s name and address and telephone number, all in case you were lost.”
—Eudora Welty (b. 1909)