Ernest Gaines
Ernest Gaines
Ernest James Gainesis an African-American author whose works have been taught in college classrooms and translated into many languages, including French, Spanish, German, Russian and Chinese. Four of his works have been made into television movies...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth15 January 1933
CountryUnited States of America
reading writing imagination
I have learned as much about writing about my people by listening to blues and jazz and spirituals as I have from reading novels. The understatements in the tenor saxophone of Lester Young, the crystal, haunting, forever searching sounds of John Coltrane, and the softness and violence of Count Basie's big band - all have fired my imagination as much as anything in literature.
writing missing singing
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.
california soul body
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.
writing past trying
All writers write about the past, and I try to make it come alive so you can see what happened.
writing wife neglect
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.
religious believe men
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.
writing trying pages
I try to write something that would interest anybody and keep them turning the page. You must have a plot and good storyline.
home wanted
I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to say something about home.
writing objectivity i-can
I write with as much objectivity as I can.
writing yesterday pages
Today I must write a paragraph or a page better than I did yesterday.
heart soul may
...my heart may have been in it but my soul was not.
teacher enemy dying
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.
running dying said
"You going back," she said. "You ain't going to run away from this, Grant."
moving athlete crafts
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.