277 Quotes by Jesmyn Ward

If I'm honest about the people that I love, then I need my characters to live through the same things that the people I love and care about are living with and struggling with.

I'm from a small town on the bottom edge of Mississippi, very near New Orleans and the Louisiana border. My family has lived there for generations.

I hope people who read my books feel empathy for us and really see us as complicated people.

It took me a long time to write again because Katrina destroyed the home I loved, and that robbed me of hope.

In my family and in my community, I see people struggling with drug addiction, with poverty and the effects of generational poverty; I see people struggling with lack of access to healthcare.

There are moments from childhood that attract heat in our memories, some for their sublime brilliance, some for their malignancy. The first time that I was treated differently because of my race is one such memory.

The women here are the ones that hold the families together. So if my mom were to be unhappy with me, in a way, it would be like I would have lost my entire family.

People ask me about staying here. I think they assume that I wouldn't want to come back to a place like Mississippi, which is so backward and which frustrates me a lot. The responsibility that I feel to tell these stories about the people and the place that I'm from is what pulls me back.

There was something so empowering about having President Obama in office because I know that for many of us, that's something that we never thought that we'd see in our lifetime.