Jesmyn Ward

“We seem to be in a continuing feedback loop of repeating a past that our country has yet to address. Our history…

— Jesmyn Ward

“I'm tired of this shit,' I say. I don't know why I say it. Maybe because I'm tried of driving, tired of…

— Jesmyn Ward

“And it was easier to let him keep on touching me than ask him to stop, easier to let him inside than…

— Jesmyn Ward

“It seems the rate of police killings now surpasses the rate of lynchings during the worst decades of the Jim Crow era.…

— Jesmyn Ward

“We crawled through time like roaches through the linings of walls, the neglected spaces and hours, foolishly happy that we were still…

— Jesmyn Ward

I love creating that community and writing about that place, because I think, in some ways, Bois Sauvage is like the DeLisle…

— Jesmyn Ward

“Would a human egg let itself be seen?”

— Jesmyn Ward

I've never been the president of anything, but I would imagine that in ways it could be a very isolating experience, because…

— Jesmyn Ward

My family and I survived Hurricane Katrina in 2005; we left my grandmother's flooding house, were refused shelter by a white family,…

— Jesmyn Ward

One of the most important things that I want for my kids is I want them to live. You know, I want…

— Jesmyn Ward

“it is the way that all girls who only know one boy move. Centered as if the love that boy feels for…

— Jesmyn Ward

I think people make certain assumptions about what they're interested in reading or what others would be interested in reading, and when…

— Jesmyn Ward

I wrote the first draft of my first novel at Michigan, and then I wrote the first draft of 'Salvage the Bones'…

— Jesmyn Ward

One of the things that is so striking to me about the South, especially living here now as an adult, is that…

— Jesmyn Ward

“By the time we'd moved into that rambling, lopsided wooden house, I'd already fallen in love with reading. I think my love…

— Jesmyn Ward

I read everything. When I say everything, I read everything: children's literature, Y.A., science fiction, fantasy, romance - I read it all.…

— Jesmyn Ward

I knew it would be painful to write a memoir.

— Jesmyn Ward

“Christophe peeled the shrimp slowly and carefully: that was his way around her, and it was the exact opposite of his usual…

— Jesmyn Ward

I think that we're just too invested in that myth that we are not connected, and are all potential millionaires if only…

— Jesmyn Ward

I live in the South; there are Confederate flags everywhere.

— Jesmyn Ward

“There's so many,' Richie says. His voice is molasses slow. 'So many of us,' he says. 'Hitting. The wrong keys. Wandering against.…

— Jesmyn Ward

With all the main characters that I write, it's always very important to me that they have good and bad aspects of…

— Jesmyn Ward

“Love don't just go away like that, Cille," Sandman said. "It do.”

— Jesmyn Ward

“I will not let him see until none of us have any choices about what can be seen, what can be avoided,…

— Jesmyn Ward

I'm always thinking about time. That's one of themes I return to in my work, the way the past bears on the…

— Jesmyn Ward