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

Ernest Gaines Quotes

If I ain’t nothing but trouble, you ain’t nothing but Nothing.

— Ernest J. Gaines

My master jecked up my dress and gived my mistress the whip and told her to teach me a lesson. Every time she hit me she asked me what I said my name was. I said Jane Brown. She hit me again: what I said my name was. I said Jane Brown.

— Ernest J. Gaines

We’ve only been living in these ghettos for seventy-five years or so, but the other three hundred years – I think this is worth writing about. I think we’ve made tremendous sacrifices, we’ve shown tremendous strength. In the ghetto you see a lot of frustration; you see very little strength.

— Ernest J. Gaines

I don’t care what a man is. I mean, a great artist is like a great doctor. I don’t care how racist he is. If he can show me how to operate on a heart so that I can cure a brother, or cure someone else, I don’t give a damn what the man thinks; he has taught me something. And that is valuable to me. And that is valuable to others and man as a whole.

— Ernest J. Gaines

That’s man’s way. To prove something. Day in, day out he must prove he is a man. Poor Fool.

— Ernest J. Gaines

We ain’t giving up,” I said. “We done gone this far.

— Ernest J. Gaines

I didn’t want to show it. Because if what he was saying was true, there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. Marshall was too big. If it was just Bonbon who wanted to hurt Marcus, you might be able to prevent that. Bonbon was nothing but a poor white man, and sometimes you could go to the rich white man for help. But where did you go when it was the rich white man? You couldn’t even go to the law, because he was the law. He was police, he was judge, he was jury.

— Ernest J. Gaines

Ain’t we all been hurt by slavery?

— Ernest J. Gaines

We must live with our own conscience. Each and every one of us must live with his own conscience.

— Ernest J. Gaines

It came from a piece of old wood that he found in the yard somewhere. That’s what we all are, Jefferson, all of us on this earth, a piece of drifting wood, until we – each one 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. Because we need you to be and want you to be.” – Grant.

— Ernest J. Gaines

Writing is too goddamned hard for me to think about a soul in teh world... I don’t think about a soul, but just try to get those goddamned characters to act right.

— Ernest J. Gaines

Go and be fish again.

— Ernest J. Gaines

The sky blue blue, Mr. Wiggins.

— Ernest J. Gaines

Memories wasn’t a place, memories was in the mind.

— Ernest J. Gaines

I spoke to the Old Man a couple of times, but I’m sure He didn’t hear a word I said. He had quit listening to man a million years ago. Now all He does is play chess by Himself or sit around playing solitary with old cards.

— Ernest J. Gaines

The heavier the burden, the longer they look at you. And Miss Julie looked at me a long, long time.

— Ernest J. Gaines

I was not there, yet I was there. No, I did not go to the trial, I did not hear the verdict, because I knew all the time what it would be. Still, I was there. I was there as much as anyone else was there.

— Ernest J. Gaines

Why?” I kept on asking myself. “Why? Who is this boy and why?” I knew that white men bonded colored boys out of jail for a few hundred dollars and worked them until they had gotten all their money back two and three times over. But I was trying to figure out why Marshall Hebert would do this when he already had more people than he needed. Now I knew. This little old lady had the finger on him, too.

— Ernest J. Gaines

Read. Read. Read. Write. Write. Write.

— Ernest J. Gaines

Plege legen toda flag. Ninety state. ‘Merica. Er – er – yeah, which it stand. Visibly. Amen.

— Ernest J. Gaines
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