166 Quotes by Tayari Jones

I like straightforward names for my characters. When I get too symbolic with names or places, I start feeling like the characters and the story are less read, and I lose interest.

I do have a sister - I have two sisters.

Adolescence is a modern construct and very American in so many ways.

When I am writing a story it feels as real as the life I am experiencing off the page. It's an emotional illusion, I guess.

Secret families are really the bedrock issue of Western literature.

I am always urging my students to honor their writing practice, to set up a schedule.

I was kind of an invisible girl when I was young.

My first novel, 'Leaving Atlanta,' took at look at my hometown in the late 1970s, when the city was terrorized by a serial murderer that left at least 29 African-American children dead.

I guess this is how love is when it comes undone. No matter how tight you knit the stitches, a sharp tug on a loose thread will transform your warm sweater into a mangled heap of yarn that you can't reuse or repair.