Gardner mixed thought-provoking or confounding stand-alone one-liners, or 'zingers' (e.g., "An' I'm writin' a new book an' it's gonna be called "What Will the "Preachers" Do When the "Devil" is Saved?"", "Gratitude is riches, and complaint is poverty, and the worst I ever had was wonderful!", "Let them that don't want none, have memories of not gettin' any... let that not be their punishment, but their reward," and "Don'tcha know a diamond ain't nothin' but a piece o' coal that's stuck with it?") with satirical musings on his contemporary political scene ("...folks used to pray to God for rain, and now they call Washington", "Say, a Democrat is somebody who expects somethin' fer nothin', and a Republican is somebody who expects nothin' fer somethin', an' a Independent is a cat that greases his own car," and "If I were bound by either party, well then, I might ferget America,"). He also told traditional, humorous Southern stories, the most notable among these being "The Motorcycle Story", "When John Gets Here" (also called "The Haunted House"), and his version of Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" as set in Rome, Georgia.