Jesmyn Ward Quotes

I'm originally from New Orleans, Louisiana, and I just feel like it's something that always been inside of me.

I love my home state and my hometown. I'm so grateful to Birmingham and Alabama for what it made me.

I've always been drawn back to the South, whether it's Southern California or in Florida, where I grew up, and I wanted to write a song about that.

I'm from the South, so I tend to tell stories. That's how we express ourselves.

I've also worked hard portraying an Ireland which is fast disappearing. Ireland was a very depressed and difficult place in the 1980s, and I've tried to include that in the script. I worked really hard to find the heart of the book.

I'm still true to my Southern roots.

Place is so important to me. The Midwest is like a ghost in my life. It's present as I look out the window now. I see Texas, but if I close my eyes and look out the same window, I'm back in my hometown in Worthington, Minnesota, and I cherish those values and that diction.

I think, being from east Tennessee, you're kinda born with a little lonesome in your soul, in your blood. You know you've got that Appalachian soul.

In my heart, I'm an Alabaman who went up north to work.

It is a great law of social development that the movement from slavery to freedom is also a movement from security to insecurity of maintenance.

In fact, for blacks who have education and who have not succumbed to a new lifestyle—the grievances, and the coarseness represented by rap music—it’s gotten tremendously better. What’s disheartening, though, is that when you study ethnic groups around the world, the ones that are lagging behind are those where their leaders always tell the same story: that it’s other people holding you back, and that therefore you need to stand against those other people and resist their culture. But that culture may be the key to success.

I do know where I'm from, and I'm proud to be an Arkansan and to represent country music.

Since I belong to Chandigarh, I love coming to Punjab.

I love Chennai and its people. My mother always tells me, 'You should have been born a South Indian!'

I really wanted to raise my boys in a place where 'celebrity' wasn't important, and where I could be closer to where I grew up (upstate NY). I love it here - it reminds me of my childhood. It seems more open minded and inclusive, and I love the seasons.

I realize the importance of retelling those stories is so that, one, we don't forget what our ancestors had to do so we can be where we are, and two, to just educate the newer generation. I'm being educated by all these films ['Race' and 'Selma'] and the things I've had the opportunity to be a part of, and kids even younger than me are being educated, too. It's important to make sure those stories never die.

I've written a lot of novels for teens and tweens ... but I'd never really tackled the North Carolina side of me. And it's so strong and so important, and yet I hadn't acknowledged it. And so one of the things I wanted to do in "Shine" is take that on.

Story is a relationship between the teller and the listener, a responsibility. After the listening you become accountable for the sacred knowledge that has been shared.

It's not your responsibility to have the bigger picture in mind. But, the downside is that then, a lot of times, you're disappointed by the movies that are made around you.

Can any man or woman choose duties? No more than they can choose their birthplace or their father and mother.

It's quite a thing, if you've never been in or known a small southern town. The people are not particularly sophisticated, naturally. They're not worldly wise in any way. But they tell you a story whenever they see you.

With the exception of my wife and children, there's nothing I value more than my Oklahoma heritage.

I love New York for being New York. I love L.A. for being L.A. But when it comes home, I'm a Midwest, South type of dude. I like open roads, I like to drive, and it may not be as fast, but it's definitely a place where you get to appreciate a lot more. Not saying that you don't up here, but that's not what I'm accustomed to.

I love telling stories. I think of myself as a storyteller, and I don't feel bound by being just a singer or an actress. First, I'm a storyteller, and history is stories - the most compelling stories. There is a lot you can find out about yourself through knowing about history. I have always been attracted to things that are old. I have just always found such things interesting and compelling.

Our history is a passion for me. I feel that we leave out so much information and huge gaps in the American story and it makes it hard for people to really understand that we are all intricately related as Americans. So I am attracted to historically based projects because we entertain and learn something at the same time. I just love that combination.