Kiese Laymon

I allude to Back to the Future in the 1985 story to let folks know it was an inspiration and because it…

— Kiese Laymon

“I lie in a bathtub of cold water, still sweating and singing love songs to myself. I put the gun to my…

— Kiese Laymon

I'm a black writer from Mississippi. That's what I most consider myself.

— Kiese Laymon

In essay writing, I'm trying to push the form of expository writing. I'm trying to remember, trying to reckon, trying to find…

— Kiese Laymon

I wish every American explored the importance of novel writing, identity, honesty, character and place in fresh-ass ways.

— Kiese Laymon

“I swear that white folks need to just shut the hell up sometimes. Y'all make it hard for everybody.”

— Kiese Laymon

Long Division has a lot of Afrosurrealist impulses. I think the book was more Afrofuturist when it was like 700 pages.

— Kiese Laymon

“Y'all taught me that unacknowledged scars accumulated in battles won often hurt more than battles lost.”

— Kiese Laymon

First of all, the novel should be a critique of the novels that have come before it in a language that broadens…

— Kiese Laymon

I'm also, than anything else, a teacher and a student. And without the four hours, I'm pretty monsterish. For real.

— Kiese Laymon

I'm an obsessive writer who needs and loves revision. Writing helps me learn and helps me teach.

— Kiese Laymon

I'm accountable - this sounds emo - to black American writing, Southern writing, Southern black American writing, American writing and my people.…

— Kiese Laymon

I'm not good enough as a person and definitely not good enough as a writer.

— Kiese Laymon

“I think of my grandma and remember that old feeling of being so in love that nothing matters except seeing and being…

— Kiese Laymon

I'm interested in how the confessional is so abrasively critiqued today. I'm not really comfortable with simply confessing but I do think…

— Kiese Laymon

One of the problems with a lot of "confessional" writing is that it starts and stops with the confessional and doesn't really…

— Kiese Laymon

“Dave, the first person I met in Poughkeepsie, was a felon because he was black, scared, desperate, and guilty. My student Cole,…

— Kiese Laymon

The "How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others" essay was so hard to write because of the memories, the sensory stuff, but…

— Kiese Laymon

Not so deep down, we all know that safety is an illusion, that only character melds us together. That’s why most of…

— Kiese Laymon

I wanted to create a book that was unafraid of black bodies, yet super interested in thinking about the relationship of love…

— Kiese Laymon

“It was actually a museum. At least that's what the sign said. It read, "The Lerthon Coldson Civil Rights Museum." It made…

— Kiese Laymon

“People always say change takes time. It's true, but really it's people who change people, and then those people have to decide…

— Kiese Laymon

“I took out my brush and got to brushing the waves on the back of my head.”

— Kiese Laymon

“But the Bible was better than those other spinach-colored Classic books that spent most of their time flossing with long sentences about…

— Kiese Laymon

Black is not a vice. Nor is segregation a virtue.

— Kiese Laymon