Jesmyn Ward Quotes

I've been here for nine years, and over that time, these people have become like my family.

Though Lexington is not a small town, it sometimes feels like one, with circles of acquaintance overlapping once, then again; the person you meet by chance at the library or the pool may turn out to be the best friend of your down-the-street neighbor. Maybe that's why people are so friendly here, so willing to be unhurried.

There are aspects of small town life that I really like - the routine nature of it, the idea of people knowing you and your likes and dislikes.

We all knew each other in the neighborhood. I loved living in El Paso. I had a wonderful childhood there.

I grew up in a small town.

You grow up in a small community, there's no outlet like New York or L.A.

The Star City community - because it's not a big city, actually; it's only 14 big houses, and everybody knows each other. It's like a small village, and I felt that somehow everybody wants to help me, especially during days when my father flew, and somehow care about me, and it was really great time, you know.

I was born in a very small town in North Dakota, a town of only about 350 people. I lived there until I was 13. It was a marvelous advantage to grow up in a small town where you knew everybody.

Coming from a smaller place always made things feel more personal, which is really what it's all about.

The stories we tell about each other matter very much. The stories we tell ourselves about our own lives matter. And most of all, I think the way that we participate in each other's stories is of deep importance.

Nashville is a lot like my hometown. You learn so quickly once someone hears something about you or sees something, everybody talks about it at dinner. They know your business, so people tend to be more private and not to throw themselves into everyone's faces.

The Russian people get so insanely close to each other as friends. Their lives are interrelated so much on an everyday basis.

We have it, we're lucky enough that we've created a show where it's not about... a family, or a kid, it's about a town.

There is this intimacy still in Botswana. It's a country of just under two million people, and there's this sense of connectedness, in that people tend to be related to one another.

Any institution becomes a community - whether it's a high school or a boarding school or a publishing company or a small town where everybody knows certain things about people.

Souderton was a good town to grow up in. Everybody knew each other.

There are things about growing up in a small town that you can't necessarily quantify.

There are a few places around the country, north shore of Oahu would be one that I would point to, where people really look out for each other; it's a real local sort of a place and once you're in that sort of ohana, or that family, everybody kind of looks out for each other.

All the stories I'll ever need are right here on Main Street.

I love those connections that make this big old world feel like a little village.

I think growing up in a small town, the kind of people I met in my small town, they still haunt me. I find myself writing about them over and over again.

I did grow up in a very small town, and I only had a couple of people in my year at school. There were a lot of kids to play with - maybe not the same age, but there was always someone around.

I think so much of your energy when you're growing up is about becoming independent of your parents. And the older you get, the more you realise you're actually so much part and parcel of the same kind of material.

We're all connected, related, part of one another's lives through the stories we tell ourselves and each other. For good and for bad.

All of the Rolling Stones' children are my children's best friends.