I believe that all literatures can have political uses and misuses. Sometimes politics can enhance, sometimes it can get in the way of imaginative literature. . . . I'm not sure one can be a creative writer and a politician… — Gayl Jones Copy Share Image
“But don't we all want to be in the presence of someone who makes us feel larger and better than what we can ourselves… — Gayl Jones Copy Share Image
There are things that a woman sings, and only a woman knows the full meaning. You may sing for men as well as for women, but only a woman knows your full meaning. I am not a feminista. I only think a woman should be true to who she believes herself to be. Or who she wants herself to be.… — Gayl Jones Copy Share
I don't like that word 'discovery.' ... Sinatra was the first one to call Ray Charles a genius, he spoke of 'the genius of Ray Charles.' And after that everybody called him a genius. They didn't call him a genius before that though. He was a genius but they didn't call him that. ... If a white man hadn't told… — Gayl Jones Copy Share
I learned to write by listening to people talk. I still feel that the best of my writing comes from having heard rather than… — Gayl Jones Copy Share Image
“I lay on my back, feeling as if more than the womb had been taken out.” — Gayl Jones Copy Share Image
You change the rhythm of the talk and respoonse and you change the rhythm between the talk and the response. — Gayl Jones Copy Share Image
When you tell a story you automatically talk about traditions, but they're never separate from the people, the human implications. You're talking about your… — Gayl Jones Copy Share Image
“I wanted a song that would touch me, touch my life and theirs. A portuguese song, but not a portuguese. song. A new world… — Gayl Jones Copy Share Image
“She was closed up like a fist. It her very own memory, not theirs, her very own real and terrible and lonely and dark… — Gayl Jones Copy Share Image
My great-grandmama told my grandmama the part she lived through that my grandmama didn't live through and my grandmama told my mama what they… — Gayl Jones Copy Share Image
“It was as if she had more than learned it off by heart. Though. it was as if their memory, the memory of all… — Gayl Jones Copy Share Image
A lot of people they don’t know that Africans even named the stars, that different peoples, different so-called native peoples, have their own names… — Gayl Jones Copy Share Image
