Ernest Gaines Quotes & Sayings

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

I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to say something about home. — Ernest Gaines

But let us say he was (guilty). Let us for a moment say he was (guilty). What justice would there be to take his life? Justice, gentlemen? Why, I would just as soon put a hog in the electric chair as this. — Ernest Gaines

"What for?" I said. "What for, Tante Lou? He treated me the same way he treated her. He wants me to feel guilty, just as he wants her to feel guilty. Well, I'm not feeling guilty, Tante Lou. I didn't put him there. I do everything I know how to do to keep people like him from going there. He's not going to make me feel guilty." — Ernest Gaines

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. — Ernest Gaines

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

"You going back," she said. "You ain't going to run away from this, Grant." — Ernest Gaines

Don't tell me to believe. Don't tell me to believe in the same God or laws that men believe in who commit these murders. Don't tell me to believe that God can bless this country and that men are judged by their peers. Who among his peers judged him? Was I there? Was the minister there? Was Harry Williams there? Was Farrell Jarreau? Was my aunt? Was Vivian? No, his peers did not judge him, and I will not believe. — Ernest Gaines

In all my stories and novels, no one ever escapes Louisiana. Maybe that is because my soul never left Louisiana, although my body did go to California. — Ernest Gaines

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

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. — Ernest Gaines

I still don't even know if the sheriff will let me see him. And suppose he did; what then? What do I say to him? 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? — Ernest Gaines

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

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. — Ernest Gaines

And I thought to myself, What am I doing? Am I reaching them at all? They are acting exactly as the old men did earlier. They are fifty years younger, maybe more, but doing the same thing those old men did who never attended school a day in their lives. Is it just a vicious circle? Am I doing anything? — Ernest Gaines

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

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. — Ernest Gaines

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

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. — Ernest Gaines

We looked at each other, and I could see in those big reddened eyes that he was not going to scream. He was full of anger - and who could blame him? - but he was no fool. He needed me, and he wanted me here, if only to insult me. — Ernest Gaines

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

You learn from music, from watching great athletes at work - how disciplined they are, how they move. You learn these things by watching a shortstop at work, how he concentrates on one thing at a time. You learn from classic music, from the blues and jazz, from bluegrass. From all this, you learn how to sustain a great line without bringing in unnecessary words. — Ernest Gaines

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. — Ernest Gaines

If I were to give one piece of advice, I would say to never accept anything that you hear or see at face value. As a general rule of thumb, then the more you question, the better. — Ernest Gaines

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. — Ernest Gaines

Now, about that mulatto teacher and me. There was no love there for each other. There was not even respect. We were enemies if anything. He hated me, and I knew it, and he knew I knew it. I didn't like him, but I needed him, needed him to tell me something that none of the others could or would. — Ernest Gaines

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

I write with as much objectivity as I can. — Ernest Gaines

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. — Ernest Gaines

We all have much more in common than we have difference. I would say that about people all over the world. They don't know how much in common that they have — Ernest Gaines

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

The Six Golden Rules of Writing: Read, read, read, and write, write, write. — Ernest Gaines

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. — Ernest Gaines

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

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

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

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

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

The mark of fear is not easily removed. — Ernest Gaines

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. — Ernest Gaines

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. — Ernest Gaines

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

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

The artist must be like a heart surgeon. He must approach something with sympathy, but with a sort of coldness and work and work until he finds some kind of perfection in his work. You can't have blood splashing all over the place. Things must be done very cleanly. — Ernest Gaines

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 have learned as much about writing about my people by listening to blues and jazz and spirituals as I have by reading novels. — Ernest Gaines

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

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. — Ernest Gaines

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