Ernest Gaines Quotes

Not only is it harder to be a man, it is also harder to become one.

Advice!Nobody tells us how to be men. We just are." "That is probably why you make such a bad job of it.- Perrin and Egwene

How can I be a man if there is no role model?

Everything I write is about me.

I want to figure out myself as a man.

You act at being a man, and before you know it, you are one.

I'm not a bro.

Why should men be constrained by antiquated stereotypes of masculinity? What does it even mean to 'Be a Real Man' anymore? Shouldn't we all be celebrating a wide range of definitions of manhood?

At the end of the day, I'm a man.

In one deep sense, novels are concealed autobiography. I don't mean that you are telling facts about yourself, but you are trying to find out what you really think or who you are.

I tried to be a boy, I tried to be a girl, I tried to be a mess.

I guess in my own life I don't really think much about manliness too much. I feel like a lot of men that I know don't sit around thinking, "How am I supposed to be a man?" I don't think that I have to prove anything.

Being a male is a matter of birth. Being a man is a matter of choice.

I come from this macho Italian neighborhood. When I was thirteen, during those real vulnerable, impressionable years, and a boy starts becoming a man, to make that transition, and you start making decisions, and you start developing virtue and principles - I never made the transition.

I always find another version of myself in each of my films.

I never really felt like I quite fit in. Other boys were playing sports and into hunting and stereotypically masculine activities. I was always more attracted to the arts. I loved to dance, I loved to sing, and I always knew I would be an actor. I don't really know why.

I've never been a confessional writer.

Don't mistake being an asshole for being a man.

There's nobody to guide through the process of becoming a man... to explain to them the meaning of manhood. And that's a recipe for disaster.

Thus, gender ideology no only creates ides about femininity but it also shapes conceptions of masculinity.

I grew up and still didn't know what it meant to be a man.

Men tend to define themselves by what they do, and so if you're dealing with a character who's trying to figure that out, or multiple characters, then there's something there for guys, too.

I'm trying to find out what the hell we - who we are.

Who Am I? Or (Perhaps More Accurately) Who Else Could Be Me?

I have a hard time isolating what it is in myself that makes me so fascinated with the theme of identity, because I came from a normal upper middle-class family. And yet, as I look back at my books, the uses of power, issues of identity, they have - it's recurrent. It happens again and again.