Quotes from Ernest J. Gaines

You wanted the past changed, Reverend Martin," she told him. "Even He can't do that. So that leaves nothing but the future. We work toward the future.

Memories wasn't a place, memories was in the mind.

I spoke to the Old Man a couple of times, but I'm sure He didn't hear a word I said. He had quit listening to man a million years ago. Now all He does is play chess by Himself or sit around playing solitary with old cards.

I was not there, yet I was there. No, I did not go to the trial, I did not hear the verdict, because I knew all the time what it would be. Still, I was there. I was there as much as anyone else was there.

It came from a piece of old wood that he found in the yard somewhere. That's what we all are, Jefferson, all of us on this earth, a piece of drifting wood, until we--each one of us, individually--decide to become something else. I am still that piece of drifting wood, and those out there are no better. But you can be better. Because we need you to be and want you to be. --Grant

They had chopped wood here too; then they were gone. Gone to the fields, the small towns, the cities – where they died. There was always news coming back to the quarter about someone who had been killed or who had been sent to prison for killing someone else: Snowball, stabbed to death in a nightclub in Port Allen; Claudee, killed by a woman in New Orleans; Smitty, sent to the state penitentiary for manslaughter. And there were others who did not go anywhere but simply died slower

Me, Mr Wiggins. Me. Me to take the cross. Your cross, Nannan's cross, my own cross. Me, Mr Wiggins. This old stumbling nigger. Y'all axe a lot, Mr Wiggins.

The last thing they ever want is to see a black man stand, and think, and show that common humanity that is in us all. It would destroy their myth. They would no longer have the justification for having made us slaves and keeping us in the condition we are in. As long as none of us stand, they're safe. They're safe with me. They're safe with Reverend Ambrose. I don't want them to feel safe with you any more.

I want you to show them the difference between what they think you are and what you can be.

I have no more to say except this: We must live with our own conscience.

How do people come up with a date and a time to take life from another man? Who made them God?

And that's all we are Jefferson, all of us on this earth, a piece of drifting wood. until we - each of us, individually- decide to become something else. I am still that piece of drifting wood, and those out there are no better. But you can be better.

Nietzsche said without music, life would be a mistake. To me, without books, life would be a mistake.

There will always be men struggling to change, and there will always be those who are controlled by the past.

You've got to bend with the wind or you're broken.

Everything's been said, but it needs saying again.

He told us that most of us would die violently, and those who did not would be brought down to the level of beasts.

Do I know what a man is ? Do I know how a man is supposed to die ? I'm still trying to find out how a man should live. Am I supposed to tell someone how to die who has never lived ?

Only when the mind is free has the body a chance to be free. Yes, they must believe, they must believe. Because I know what it means to be a slave. I am a slave.

Sometimes you got to hurt something to help something. Sometimes you have to plow under one thing in order for something else to grow.

Anytime a child is born, the old people look in his face and ask him if he's the One.

my heart may have been in it but my soul was not.

I tried to decide just how I should respond to them. Whether I should act like the teacher that I was, or like the nigger that I was supposed to be.

I think it's God that makes people care for people, Jefferson. I think it's God makes children play and people sing. I believe it's God that brings loved ones together. I believe it's God that makes trees bud and food grow out of the earth.