ancestral impact Quotes

Somebody would think I was trying to get favored treatment because my ancestors had the name Moon. And that's a joke.

Sadly, I wish I had been able to play ["Miner's Prayer"] for [grandfather]. Yeah, I'll never escape the influence of him in my life. And my - his wife, my grandmother, Earlene Tibbs - those experiences with them shaped me musically probably more profoundly than anything else in my life and shaped me as a writer.

We move through places every day that would never have been if not for those who came before us. Our workplaces, where we spend so much time--we often think they began with our arrival. That's not true.

A man is the sum of his ancestors; to reform him you must begin with a dead ape and work downward through a million graves.

A lot of women make choices based on how they saw their mother's choices working out, how they saw the choices of the women elders in their lives working out. There's some rebellion in that, but there's also some deep reflection.

Most of my influences are from the past.

It is not altogether a bad thing to have criminal ancestors. An arsonist grandfather may bequeath one a nose for smelling smoke.

We're still benefiting from the sacrifices of people long dead, but we're also suffering from their errors.

The past is the father of the present.

I hold that a strongly marked personality can influence descendants for generations.