Quotes from Ernest Gaines

I was raised by a lady that was crippled all her life but she did everything for me and she raised me. She washed our clothes, cooked our food, she did everything for us. I don't think I ever heard her complain a day in her life. She taught me responsibility towards my brother and sisters and the community.

I suppose I started writing seriously at 16 years old. I thought I wrote a novel at 16 and sent it to New York! They sent it back because it wasn't novel.

We wait till now? Now, when we're old men, we get to be brave?

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

Words mean nothing. Action is the only thing. Doing. That's the only thing.

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

The sharecropper may lower his eyes, but not because he's less of a man. That's just a condition of society that such things exist.

I believe that the writer should tell a story. I believe in plot. I believe in creating characters and suspense.

Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?

What I miss today more than anything else - I don't go to church as much anymore - but that old-time religion, that old singing, that old praying which I love so much. That is the great strength of my being, of my writing.

The mark of fear is not easily removed.

I write to try to find out who I am. One of my main themes is manliness. I think I'm trying to figure out what manliness really is.

Grace under pressure isn't just about bullfighters and men at war. It's about getting up every day to face a job or a white boss you don't like but have to face to feed your children so they'll grow up to be a better generation.

I was raised by a lady that was crippled all her life but she did everything for me and she raised me. She washed our clothes, cooked our food, she did everything for us. I don't think I ever heard her complain a day in her life. She taught me responsibility towards my brother and sisters and the community.

What I miss today more than anything else - I don't go to church as much anymore - but that old-time religion, that old singing, that old praying which I love so much. That is the great strength of my being, of my writing.

Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?

In the beginning, I tried to be a more cosmopolitan writer, but I realized that I was a country boy, and I had to deal with things I knew about and where I came from.

When I'm sitting in the church alone, I can hear singing of the old people. I can hear their singing and I can hear their praying, and sometimes I hum one of their songs.

Today I must write a paragraph or a page better than I did yesterday.

I try to write something that would interest anybody and keep them turning the page. You must have a plot and good storyline.

Without love for my fellow man and respect for nature, to me, life is an obscenity.

A myth is an old lie that people believe in. White people believe that they're better than anyone else on earth - and that's a myth.

I think I'm a very religious person. I think I believe in God as much as any man does. I don't only believe in God, I know there's God.

I like the sound of people's voices, and I think what a man says can very well tell what he's thinking, whether he's lying or not.