Ernest Gaines Quotes

Quotes about:

• 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

  Hurt, Order, Helping

  53 Copy quote

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

  Ernest Gaines

  Motivational, Respect, Integrity

  70 Copy quote

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

  Ernest Gaines

  Thinking, Differences, Want

  Ernest J. Gaines (2015). “A Lesson Before Dying”, p.189, Serpent's Tail

  23 Copy quote

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

  Ernest Gaines

  Stars, African American, Stripes

  Ernest J. Gaines (2012). “Bloodline: Five Stories”, p.95, Vintage

  27 Copy quote

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

  Ernest Gaines

  Conscience

  Ernest J. Gaines (2015). “A Lesson Before Dying”, p.15, Serpent's Tail

  29 Copy quote

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

  Ernest Gaines

  Life, Motivational, Mean

  Ernest J. Gaines (2012). “Bloodline: Five Stories”, p.101, Vintage

  18 Copy quote

• 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

  Differences, People, World

  14 Copy quote

• Without love for my fellow man and respect for nature, to me, life is an obscenity.

  Ernest Gaines

  Men

  "National Medal of Arts". Academy of Achievemnt Interview, www.achievement.org. May 4, 2001.

  18 Copy quote

• You've got to bend with the wind or you're broken.

  Ernest Gaines

  Wind, Broken

  Ernest J. Gaines, John Lowe (1995). “Conversations with Ernest Gaines”, p.128, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  13 Copy quote

• Everything's been said, but it needs saying again.

  Ernest Gaines

  Needs, Said

  Ernest J. Gaines, John Lowe (1995). “Conversations with Ernest Gaines”, p.251, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  10 Copy quote

• The Six Golden Rules of Writing: Read, read, read, and write, write, write.

  Ernest Gaines

  Writing, Golden, Six

  15 Copy quote

• Nietzsche said without music, life would be a mistake. To me, without books, life would be a mistake.

  Ernest Gaines

  Mistake, Book, Would Be

  18 Copy quote

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

  Ernest Gaines

  Change, Struggle, Past

  Ernest J. Gaines, John Lowe (1995). “Conversations with Ernest Gaines”, p.29, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  12 Copy quote

• 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

  Lying, Believe, White

  Ernest J. Gaines (2015). “A Lesson Before Dying”, p.189, Serpent's Tail

  8 Copy quote

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

  Ernest Gaines

  Writing, Yesterday, Pages

  "Author Ernest Gaines comes home to where his ancestors were enslaved" by Wayne Drash, www.cnn.com. November 9, 2010.

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Writing, Thinking, Who I Am

  22 Copy quote

• 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

  Moving, Athlete, Crafts

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Heart, Artist, Blood

  Ernest J. Gaines, John Lowe (1995). “Conversations with Ernest Gaines”, p.21, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  34 Copy quote

• 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

  California, Soul, Louisiana

  11 Copy quote

• 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

  Brother, Responsibility, Thinking

  Live chat, cnn.com. May 13, 1999.

  12 Copy quote

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

  Ernest Gaines

  Men, People, Made

  Ernest J. Gaines (2004). “A Lesson Before Dying: A Novel”, p.159, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Pieces, Earth, Woods

  Ernest J. Gaines (2015). “A Lesson Before Dying”, p.191, Serpent's Tail

  9 Copy quote

• 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

  Reading, Writing, People

  Ernest J. Gaines (2007). “Mozart and Leadbelly”, p.27, Vintage

  6 Copy quote

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

  Ernest Gaines

  Men, Bravery, Waiting

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Believe, Mean, Mind

  Ernest J. Gaines (2004). “A Lesson Before Dying: A Novel”, p.255, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

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