Gayl Jones Quotes

• I learned to write by listening to people talk. I still feel that the best of my writing comes from having heard rather than having read.

  Gayl Jones

  Writing, People, Listening

  Gayl Jones (2005). “White Rat: Short Stories”, Harlem Moon

  52 Copy quote

• A lot of people they don’t know that Africans even named the stars, that different peoples, different so-called native peoples, have their own names for the stars, and have star charts just as accurate as the Chinese star charts, which are more ancient than the European star charts or even the Arabic ones or the star charts of the New World civilizations. Everybody’s got their own cosmology. Everybody’s got their own description of the universe.

  Gayl Jones

  Stars, Civilization, Names

  Gayl Jones (2016). “The Healing”, p.30, Beacon Press

  11 Copy quote

• When you tell a story you automatically talk about traditions, but they're never separate from the people, the human implications. You're talking about your connections as a human being.

  Gayl Jones

  Talking, People, Connections

  7 Copy quote

• My great-grandmama told my grandmama the part she lived through that my grandmama didn't live through and my grandmama told my mama what they both lived through and my mama told me what they all lived through and we were suppose to pass it down like that from generation to generation so we'd never forget.

  Gayl Jones

  Generations, Mama, Never Forget

  7 Copy quote

• I don't like that word 'discovery.' ... Sinatra was the first one to call Ray Charles a genius, he spoke of 'the genius of Ray Charles.' And after that everybody called him a genius. They didn't call him a genius before that though. He was a genius but they didn't call him that. ... If a white man hadn't told them, they wouldn't've seen it. ... Like, you know, they say Columbus discovered America, he didn't discover America.

  Gayl Jones

  Men, Discovery, White Man

  11 Copy quote

• There are things that a woman sings, and only a woman knows the full meaning. You may sing for men as well as for women, but only a woman knows your full meaning. I am not a feminista. I only think a woman should be true to who she believes herself to be. Or who she wants herself to be. Or who she imagines herself to be. I don't know what I mean, or whether I'm true myself to any of that. I don't think there are many of us who are true to our possibilities.

  Gayl Jones

  Believe, Mean, Men

  8 Copy quote

• I believe that all literatures can have political uses and misuses. Sometimes politics can enhance, sometimes it can get in the way of imaginative literature. . . . I'm not sure one can be a creative writer and a politician -- not a "good" politician.

  Gayl Jones

  Believe, Creative, Political

  9 Copy quote

• You change the rhythm of the talk and respoonse and you change the rhythm between the talk and the response.

  Gayl Jones

  Rhythm, Response

  7 Copy quote

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