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.
— Ernest Gaines
I believe that the writer should tell a story. I believe in plot. I believe in creating characters and suspense.
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 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.
All writers write about the past, and I try to make it come alive so you can see what happened.
I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to say something about home.
Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?
Words mean nothing. Action is the only thing. Doing. That's the only thing.
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 try to write something that would interest anybody and keep them turning the page. You must have a plot and good storyline.
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.
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.
Today I must write a paragraph or a page better than I did yesterday.
Sometimes you got to hurt something to help something. Sometimes you have to plow under one thing in order for something else to grow.
There will always be men struggling to change, and there will always be those who are controlled by the past.
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.
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 write with as much objectivity as I can.
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 had to see and feel and be with the thing that I wanted to write about.
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.
The mark of fear is not easily removed.
Question everything. Every stripe, every star, every word spoken. Everything.
