Jesmyn Ward : (11)

" Hip-hop, which is my generation’s blues, is important to the characters that I write about. They use hip-hop to understand the world through language. " - Jesmyn Ward

" My time in New York really clarified things for me. I thought, ‘What could I do with my life that would give it meaning?’ And writing was that for me. " - Jesmyn Ward

" As a parent, you want to protect your children, but the fact of racism in this country, of inequality, that is still a lesson my children are going to have to learn. I can’t protect my kids from that. " - Jesmyn Ward

" That larger story in ‘Salvage the Bones’ is just about survival, and I think that, in the end, there are things about this novel and about these characters’ experiences that make their stories universal stories. " - Jesmyn Ward

" A lot of times, real life is more surreal than writing. " - Jesmyn Ward

" I always understood my ancestry, like that of so many others in the Gulf Coast, to be a tangle of African slaves, free men of color, French and Spanish immigrants, British colonists, Native Americans – but in what proportion, and what might that proportion tell me about who I thought I was? " - Jesmyn Ward

" Part of me is stuck in my childhood in the Eighties. I actually watch ‘The Neverending Story,’ ‘Labyrinth,’ and ‘Legend’ over and over again. Also, ‘Willow’ and ‘The Goonies.’ " - Jesmyn Ward

" Before Hurricane Katrina, I always felt like I could come back home. And home was a real place, and also it had this mythical weight for me. Because of the way that Hurricane Katrina ripped everything away, it cast that idea in doubt. " - Jesmyn Ward

" I love my community. I love always being able to come back and have a home. " - Jesmyn Ward

" The ugly heart of the South still beats with this idea that one group of people is worth less. " - Jesmyn Ward