Ernest Gaines's Quotes

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

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

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

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.

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

Question everything. Every stripe, every star, every word spoken. Everything.

The mark of fear is not easily removed.

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.

All writers write about the past, and I try to make it come alive so you can see what happened.

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

I had to see and feel and be with the thing that I wanted to write about.

I knew I wanted to be a writer and I knew if I had a wife and family, I would neglect something, and I was afraid it wouldn't be the writing.

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

I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to say something about home.

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.

I write with as much objectivity as I can.

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.

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

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.

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.