The guitar poured out its soul, its history, its dreams, its pain, its victories, its secrets. The guitar’s strings purred with blues and ended with a haunting solitary song with no lyrics.

— Brenda Sutton Rose

The place cast a spell on me, a lovely spell that seduced me one breath at a time.

— Brenda Sutton Rose

There are parents who use their small children as weapons. They are weak people. Sick people. And their children are watching them, watching how Mom and Dad use them as weapons.

— Brenda Sutton Rose

There are secrets hiding inside this six-string just waitin’ for somebody to find ‘em and turn ‘em into music.

— Brenda Sutton Rose

These babies ain’t just guitars; these babies are living, breathing instruments.

— Brenda Sutton Rose

The truth had lacerated him to the bone, had punctured his heart, and had ripped through his soul. The truth had slain him and tended to his wounds. The truth had hated him and loved him. The truth had opened his eyes to his own faults.

— Brenda Sutton Rose

The wind whirls and whistles and strip pink blooms from the mimosas, scatters twigs, broken limbs, pine needles and pine cones across our yard, and robs the pecan trees of a thousand leaves. The storm eventually dies, but the bruised trees continue to weep into the night, still shimmering with dewy leaves when the sun comes up the next morning.

— Brenda Sutton Rose

When a man's running, he seldom looks back.

— Brenda Sutton Rose

When his wounds cut too deep for the blues--when he couldn't sing himself out of his own sorrow--when he was too wounded to shimmy his fingers over piano keys--he came to the healing waters of the Alabama River. And on the river he recounted his sins, confessing to the ancient rhythmic flow of the current. Communion.

— Brenda Sutton Rose

When you scratch these guitars, they bleed.

— Brenda Sutton Rose