Joel Chandler Quotes

“All of the delightful and inimitable tales of Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, Brer Bear, and Brer Wolf were gathered together in one volume.”

“Didn’t the fox ever catch the rabbit, Uncle Remus?′ asked the little boy the next evening. ‘He came very near it, honey, as sure as you are born, Brer Fox did.’ One day after Brer Fox had fooled him with the calamus root, Brer Fox went to work and got some tar.”

“Uncle Remus is a kindly old freedman who serves as a story-telling device, passing on the folktales to children gathered around him, like the traditional African griot. ”

“Uncle Remus is a compilation of Br’er Rabbit storytellers whom Harris had encountered during his time at the Turnwold Plantation. ”

“Brer Rabbit kept on asking him, and the Tar-baby, she kept on saying nothing, until presently Brer Rabbit drew back with his fist, he did, and blip! he struck her on the side of the head.”

“The stories are written in an eye dialect devised by Harris to represent a Deep South Black dialect.”

“By and by, one day, after Brer Fox had been doing all that he could to catch Brer Rabbit, and Brer Rabbit had been doing all that he could to keep him from it, Brer Fox said to himself that he could play a trick upon Brer Rabbit, and he hadn’t more than got the words out of his mouth when Brer Rabbit came bounding up the big road, looking just as plump, and as fat, and as sauce as a pig in a clover-field.”

“Of course Brer Fox wanted to hurt Brer Rabbit as much as he could, so he caught by the hind-legs and slug him right in the middle of the brier-patch. There was a considerable flutter where Brer Rabbit struck the bushes, and Brer Fox hung around so as to see what would happen.”

“One evening recently, the lady whom Uncle Remus calls ‘Miss Sally’ missed her little seven-year-old. Making search for him through through the yard, she heard the sound of voices in the old man’s cabin, and, looking through the window, saw the child sitting by Uncle Remus.”

“Uncle Remus,′ said the little boy one evening, when he had found the old man with little or nothing to do, ‘did the fox kill and eat the rabbit when he caught him with the Tar-baby?’ ‘Dear me, honey, didn’t I tell you about that?’ replied the old man, chucking slyly.”