For Immediate Release
Office of the First Lady
March 22, 2004
Remarks by First Lady Laura Bush at the White House Symposium on Classic American Stories
White House Salute to America's Authors
The East Room
10:37 A.M. EST
MRS. BUSH: Good morning, everybody. Good morning, welcome to the
White House. I'm so excited about today's great program. We're going
to celebrate three very remarkable American authors, Truman Capote,
Flannery O'Connor and Eudora Welty. And we have a very distinguished
group of musicians and authors and actors who will bring their work to
life for us today. So I want to thank everybody who is participating
in today's program. Thank you all very, very much for enlightening us
today.
I also want to recognize Mrs. Cheney. Thank you so much for being
here, Lynne. Lynne, I know, included Flannery O'Connor's name in her
alphabet book, A is for Abigail, an alphabet book of amazing American
women, so I know she loves Flannery O'Connor's work. If you wonder,
Flannery O'Connor was in the "W," for women -- for writers, women
writers.
We're also really thrilled to have Senator Alexander here. Thank
you so much for being here to join us today. And we have Elizabeth
Welty Thompson and Mary Alice Welty White who are here honoring their
aunt, Eudora Welty. Thank you all for joining us.
And then welcome to the students from Gonzaga High School and from
Benjamin Banneker High School. Thank you for joining us today. These
are two English classes that have joined us who are great English
students, and we know you will love this today. I think you will
really like it all.
There's a saying that life is nothing more or nothing less than the
sum of the stories you tell about it. For these authors, storytelling
was their life. Throughout their careers, they explored a common
geography, the American South. And they revealed to the world that
most uncommon terrain, the mysterious terrain of the human heart.
Though he is viewed as a literary revolutionary, Truman Capote
gained this reputation in a traditional manner, by moving readers
through the power of his words. He started writing when he was nine
years old and he said, "Some people have an instinctive feeling for
jumping in the water to swim. I had the instinct to write."
Whether telling about an orphaned boy and an eccentric spinster in
the Grass Harp or the enchanting, self-absorbed Holly Golightly in
Breakfast at Tiffany's, or exploring the criminal mind in In Cold
Blood, Capote gave breath to a wind that, in his words, "gathers and
remembers all our voices then sends them talking and telling through
the leaves and the fields."
A Catholic writer in the Protestant South, Flannery O'Connor wrote
about the wind, too. But for her, it took on its biblical meaning as
the spirit of God. And yet, in spite of her intense religious
convictions, O'Connor harshly condemned writing that was merely pious.
She demanded of herself higher stakes.
She used mordant satire to encourage civil rights and to condemn
racism. She created a world where good and evil battled one another
for the souls of good country people. In her lifetime, O'Connor was
criticized for the bleak content of her stories. Where she saw
revelation and redemption others saw loss and betrayal. She faced her
critics head on and unapologetically writing, "It requires considerable
courage at any time in any country not to turn away from the
storyteller."
Lastly, we come to Ms. Welty. That's all one has to say, Ms.
Welty. She is as famous for her sense of humor and her personal grace
as for her remarkable stories and photographs. She gained her love of
writing and books from her mother, who was an avid reader. Chestina
Welty once raced back into a burning house to save a set of Dickens.
She took Eudora to the library when she was nine years old and she told
her that she could read any book she waned, and Eudora did. Ms. Welty
said, "Two by two, I read library books as fast as I could go, rushing
them home in the basket of my bicycle. I cannot remember a time when I
was not in love with books themselves, the cover and binding and the
paper they were printed on, with their smell and their weight and with
their possession in my arms."
Ms. Welty never shied away in her life or in her art from taking
risks, including the risk of love. She acknowledged this fact herself,
writing, "I have been told both in approval and accusation that I seem
to love all my characters. What I do in writing of any character is to
try to enter into the mind, heart and skin of another being who is not
myself. Whether this happens to be a man or a woman, old or young,
with skin black or white, the primary challenge lies in making the jump
itself. It's the act of a writer's imagination that I set most high."
So today we're going to get to hear how each of these writers
transformed the literary landscape with heart, soul and imagination.
Now, it's my pleasure to introduce Dana Gioia, the Chairman of the
National Endowment for the Arts. Chairman Gioia is fond of saying, a
great nation deserves great art. The President and I strongly agree.
Mr. Dana Gioia. (Applause.)
* * * * *
MRS. BUSH: Thanks to everyone. Thank you all very, very much for
entertaining us with these great songs and for enlightening us about
these writers and for your terrific readings from their books. Thank
you very, very much. It has been a really wonderful morning.
We've learned a lot about all these writers. We've learned that
their themes touch us all, that their characters are people we know --
or, maybe in the case of Flannery O'Connor, people we're glad we don't
know -- (laughter) -- and that their lessons are timeless.
When she was in the tenth grade -- I thought the students might be
interested in this -- Flannery O'Connor wrote a poem called "First
Book," and this is what she wrote. "When man was just a caveman, in
the prehistoric age, his mind began to wander, and his bean began to
rage. To think that he had all these years, been lonesome, dumb, and
tough, without a spot of culture to make him not so rough. He took his
brain within his hands and pressed it hard and tight, until within his
feeble mind, there shone a spark of light. Thus inspiration came to
man, and he without delay, wrote down the words she told him to on
slides of stone and clay. And when the masterpiece was done, he called
his friends to come look, they asked him what he named the thing, he
said with ease, 'a book.' Thus the ancestor of books was born on
slides of stone and clay. How far removed was that old book from those
we have today? And since we have the chance to read let's take it
while we can, how far removed are we today, from prehistoric man?"
(Applause.)
Thank you all very much. Thanks for these great stories and for
telling us about these great American writers. Thank you all.
(Applause.)
END 12:06 P.M. EST
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