50 Jesmyn Ward Quotes for You to Enjoy

Jesmyn Ward

American Novelist

About Community Me People Think Writing

Related authors: Elie Wiesel Ernest Hemingway H. P. Lovecraft James Baldwin John Updike Leo Rosten Nathaniel Hawthorne Richard Bach

It really bothers me when people say we live in a postracial America. Jesmyn Ward

Me People Live Say People Say Bothers America Really

I would encounter W. E. B. Du Bois and the term double consciousness. When I read it, I thought about sitting in my mother's employer's family room, watching my mother clean while I waited for her to finish so we could go home. Jesmyn Ward

Home Family Mother Thought Would About Finish Clean Could Term Employer Read Go Go Home Waited Encounter Sitting While Room Double Her Consciousness Watching

I feel a lot of pressure when I'm writing because I know, you know, if they looked at a synopsis of the book, what they read could only confirm all the stereotypes that they have about us and about people like us. Jesmyn Ward

You Book People Writing Pressure About Only Could Feel Stereotypes Like Know Looked Read Because Lot Confirm Us

I feel like in the reading I did when I was growing up, and also in the way that people talk and tell stories here in the South, they use a lot of figurative language. The stories that I heard when I was growing up, and the stories that I read, taught me to use the kind of language that I do. It's hard for me to work against that when I am writing. Jesmyn Ward

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We're all about pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, et cetera - I think that's a harmful mythology, that the choices that we make and the things that we do in our lives are not connected to anything else. So I'd like to help to debunk that. Jesmyn Ward

I've found that in fiction - and this is just the kind of writer I am - I can't really work from an outline. I have a vague idea of the characters at the beginning of the book, and then I have a vague idea of whatever the end of the book will be, but I can't approach creative nonfiction like that. Jesmyn Ward

Work Creative Book Will Beginning Whatever Approach Characters Kind Outline Writer Idea Like Nonfiction Am End Just Fiction Then Really Found Vague Vague Idea

I was pleasantly surprised with 'Salvage.' I went to Australia and New Zealand for the novel and met a lot of people who had experienced the earthquakes in Christchurch. They responded very strongly to the book because they had been through these natural disasters and were trying to figure out how to rebuild. Jesmyn Ward

Natural Book People Met Natural Disasters Rebuild Pleasantly Earthquakes Out Strongly Through Had New Disasters Because How Were Surprised Been Lot Australia Very Salvage Trying Experienced New Zealand Figure Who Novel Zealand

People give the South a bad rap. It's often stereotyped as backwards and close-minded and dogmatic, and all of those things have been true. But I think that the South is changing, slowly but surely. Jesmyn Ward

People Backwards Think Changing Those Rap Bad Slowly Give Bad Rap True Surely Dogmatic Been South Often Things

In American culture at large, but especially in African American culture, it's a sign of weakness to ask for help. Jesmyn Ward

Culture Sign Weakness American American Culture African African-American Ask Help Large

I'm always curious about other writers' routines. Jesmyn Ward

Other About Writers Always Curious Routines

I hope that I never have to work in a place that sells large quantities of jeans ever again. Jeans are rough! It used to kill my hands. I know that sounds prissy - I'm not prissy at all. But it did; it killed my hands. It was awful. Jesmyn Ward

Work Hope Never Know Quantities Sounds Sells Did Hands Place Again Used Jeans Large Rough Ever Awful

One of the ways my first novel failed was that I was too in love with my characters. Jesmyn Ward

Love First Too Ways Characters Failed Novel

The reason that I like to use classical myths as models is because African American writers and African American stories are usually understood as occurring in some kind of vacuum - because of slavery. Jesmyn Ward

Kind Some Classical Writers Myths Like Because Understood American Models African African-American Stories Use Reason American Writers Slavery Vacuum

I try to treat writing as part of my daily routine: I write for at least two hours, five days per week. I tend to write at home, in a room I've set aside for the task. I don't work well in cafes or busy, loud spaces, although I wish I could. It would mean greater flexibility for me. Jesmyn Ward

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I worked with several writers at the University of Michigan: Nicholas Delbanco, Peter Ho Davies, Eileen Pollack, Laura Kasischke, and Thomas Lynch, who told me the same thing over and over again: Persist. Read, write, and improve: tell your stories. Jesmyn Ward

I recently read a collection of stories called 'Boondock Kollage,' by Regina Bradley. The stories follow multiple characters through the South, through the past and present. I loved reading that book: the first time I read the opening story, I was breathless and incoherent. Jesmyn Ward

Faulkner is a really important figure in southern literature. I wrestle with him and his legacy every time I sit down and write a piece of fiction. Jesmyn Ward

Time Important Sit Down Every Every Time Faulkner Wrestle Write Piece Him His Legacy Southern Fiction Literature Really Figure

My brother died when he was 19, so a part of me indulges and thinks that some part of him that made him uniquely him is out there, on another plane. So inventing the fictional afterlife in 'Sing, Unburied, Sing' was a way of making that wish real. Jesmyn Ward

Young people have a right to optimism, and rightly so; human beings have grown and developed and accomplished wonderful feats in the world. But what mires me in pessimism is the fact that so much of life is pain and sorrow and willful ignorance and violence, and pushing back against that tide takes so much effort, so much steady fight. It's tiring. Jesmyn Ward

Life Me Ignorance Fight People Wonderful World Young Pain Back Willful Rightly Steady Feats Fact Developed Pushing Takes Tide Sorrow Accomplished Optimism Effort Human Human Beings Tiring Against Young People Much Pessimism Beings Grown Right Violence

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