"...a quarter of a league from the river, in an open forest of luxuriant and lofty trees near a brook." - A Narrative of the Expedition of Hernando de Soto, 1557

"Arkansas is known mostly for chickens and tourism." -L.E. Kimball

"Where the white river runs and the southern sun makes the kudzu grow." - "Arkansas" by Chris Stapleton

"If I could rest anywhere, it would be in Arkansas, where the men are of the real half-horse, half-alligator breed such as grows nowhere else on the face of the universal earth." - Davy Crockett

“The sound of the blues, rhythm and blues, country music, is what we lived for, black and white alike. It gave you strength to sit on one of those throbbing Allis-Chalmers tractors all day if you knew you were gonna hear something on the radio or maybe see a show that evening.” - Levon Helm in This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band

"There is pretty strong characters down there. You can't redeem 'em, you just join 'em." - Will Rogers

"It may be the small thunder of a covey of quail that he will remember longest, or a flight of mallards wheeling down into a swamp because of a hunter's expertly rendered call, or the bright glow of strawstacks burning in the ricefields after threshing time. The zigzag rail fences overgrown with honeysuckle, the clear smokeless air in the cities, the tumbling of the mountains eastward from Winslow, the smell of woodsmoke from a great stone chimney at the end of a cabin, the pungency of pine sawdust and the whine of the saw biting into a log, the clumps of mistletoe in leafless trees." - Federal Writers Project, 1947

"Peaches growin on the trees
Melons taller than your knees
Singin’ while you do your chores
Neach the oak and sycamore"
Big Bill Broonzy, "Goin' back to Arkansas"

"Moats and boats and waterfalls
Alleyways and pay phone calls."
Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, "Home"

"Arkansas is a parallel state influenced equally by star-crossed criminality and the dreamlike myth of the sheltering family." -Tom Drury

The Bear State - an early nickname of Arkansas

The Toothpick State - an early nickname of Arkansas

Rackensack - an early nickname of Arkansas

The Wonder State - Arkansas' first official nickname

The Land of Opportunity - Arkansas official nickname from 1953 to 1995

The Natural State - Arkansas' current official nickname