Quote

I try to write something that would interest anybody and keep them turning the page. You must have a plot and good storyline.

Ernest Gaines

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Ernest Gaines
Age: 86 †
Born: 1933
Born: January 15
Died: 2019
Died: November 5
Novelist
Teacher
University Teacher
Writer
Oscar
Louisiana
Ernest Gaines
Ernest James Gaines
Writing
Turning
Trying
Page
Something
Pages
Good
Anybody
Would
Interest
Write
Keep
Storyline
Must
Plot

More quotes by Ernest Gaines

Image
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
Image
We wait till now? Now, when we're old men, we get to be brave?
Ernest Gaines
Image
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
Image
Nietzsche said without music, life would be a mistake. To me, without books, life would be a mistake.
Ernest Gaines
Image
I believe that the writer should tell a story. I believe in plot. I believe in creating characters and suspense.
Ernest Gaines
Image
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
Image
All writers write about the past, and I try to make it come alive so you can see what happened.
Ernest Gaines
Image
I suppose I started writing seriously at 16 years old. I thought I wrote a novel at 16 and sent it to New York! They sent it back because it wasn't novel.
Ernest Gaines
Image
I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to say something about home.
Ernest Gaines
Image
Words mean nothing. Action is the only thing. Doing. That's the only thing.
Ernest Gaines
Image
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
Image
He told us that most of us would die violently, and those who did not would be brought down to the level of beasts.
Ernest Gaines
Image
I want you to show them the difference between what they think you are and what you can be.
Ernest Gaines
Image
...my heart may have been in it but my soul was not.
Ernest Gaines
Image
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
Image
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
Image
The Six Golden Rules of Writing: Read, read, read, and write, write, write.
Ernest Gaines
Image
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.
Ernest Gaines
Image
Question everything. Every stripe, every star, every word spoken. Everything.
Ernest Gaines
Image
But let us say he was (guilty). Let us for a moment say he was (guilty). What justice would there be to take his life? Justice, gentlemen? Why, I would just as soon put a hog in the electric chair as this.
Ernest Gaines