277 Quotes by Jesmyn Ward

The burden of regret weighs heavily. It is relentless.

I’m a failed poet. Reading poetry helps me to see the world differently, and I try to infuse my prose with figurative language, which goes against the trend in fiction.

Because we trusted nothing, we endeavored to protect ourselves, boys becoming misogynistic and violent, girls turning duplicitous, all of us hopeless.

The trees sigh.

It was easier and harder to be male; men were given more freedom but threatened with less freedom.

While I’ve said that there are plenty of things I dislike about the South, I can be clear that there are things I love about the South.

Why figure out what will motivate this kid to learn if, statistically, he’s just another young Black male destined to drop out anyway? He was never referred to a counselor, never tested for a learning disorder, never given some sort of individual attention that might better equip him to navigate junior high school and high school.

I don’t know if it’s something I did. Or if it’s something that’s in Leonie. But she ain’t got the mothering instinct. I knew when you was little and we was out shopping, and she bought herself something to eat and ate it right in front of you, and you was sitting there crying hungry. I knew then.

Nerissa, one year old then, was in the house with our parents, and she was crying. Joshua and I sat on the dark porch, and I held him around his thin shoulders. He was shaking, and I was shaking, but we could not cry. I hugged my brother in the dark. I was his big sister. My mother and father yelled at each other in the house, and as the bats fluttered overhead, dry as paper, I heard the sound of glass shattering, of wood splintering, of things breaking.