A Quote by Ernest Gaines

I write to try to find out who I am. One of my main themes is manliness. I think I'm trying to figure out what manliness really is. — © Ernest Gaines
I write to try to find out who I am. One of my main themes is manliness. I think I'm trying to figure out what manliness really is.
Manliness means perfect manhood, as womanliness implies perfect womanhood. Manliness is the character of a man as he ought to be, as he was meant to be.
Civilization comes at a cost of manliness. It comes at a cost of wildness, of risk, of strife. It comes at a cost of strength, of courage, of mastery. It comes at a cost of honor. Increased civilization exacts a toll of virility, forcing manliness into further redoubts of vicariousness and abstraction.
I'm not trying to erase my culture or my faith, I'm trying to be the best version of myself, and it's really hard. I don't think I'm right, I don't claim to be correct, I'm just trying to figure it out and figure out a balance.
But I don't really write to honor the past. I write to investigate, to try to figure out what happened and why it happened, knowing I'll never really know. I think all the writers that I admire have this same desire, the desire to bring order out of chaos.
I guess in my own life I don't really think much about manliness too much. I feel like a lot of men that I know don't sit around thinking, "How am I supposed to be a man?" I don't think that I have to prove anything.
Sometimes, I have themes that interest me or that touch on larger issues but, really, I'm just trying to figure out the plot, or how the characters work. I'm trying to make the best story I possibly can.
Thank God for my computer. Sometimes when there is no one to talk to, I talk aloud so that I can get all my thoughts out and try to figure out the issues that I'm having and try, I'm trying to find the answers.
First find the man in yourself if you will inspire manliness in others.
The biggest fear that everybody has is dying. Not to get too meta on you, but I think every fear that people are trying to work out is really like I'm going to die and no one is going to care, and it doesn't matter because God might not exist. That's what people are trying to figure out. I wish we all had one fear so we could think about it together and figure out a solution, but we're all doing different things.
I'm trying to figure out what I can do creatively. It's about trying to find new things and trying to figure out voices and borrowing from things and learning as much as possible so that I have an archive of things to borrow from.
It is my deepest belief that only by giving our lives do we find life. I am convinced that the truest act of courage, the strongest act of manliness is to sacrifice ourselves for others in a totally non-violent struggle for justice.
I don't really do themes. I might accidentally, but themes are an emergent phenomena of the writing of the book, of just trying to get a story out there.
One is constantly trying to figure out what came together in one's childhood. Lots of people spend significant portions of their lives in therapy - especially in the States - trying to work out who they are. I'm certain there is a little of that in the business of writing. That would explain why certain images and themes recur.
I think the Russians are trying to figure out what to do. I don't think they know what to do with our president Donald Trump. I don't think they know what to do with the situation. They've been isolated when it comes to Syria and they're trying to figure out what their place in the world is going to be.
The main thing I try to do is write as clearly as I can. Because I have the greatest respect for the reader, and if he's going to the trouble of reading what I've written -- I'm a slow reader myself and I guess most people are -- why, the least I can do is make it as easy as possible for him to find out what I'm trying to say, trying to get at. I rewrite a good deal to make it clear.
There will be a 'Guardians 3,' that's for sure. We're trying to figure it out. I'm trying to figure out what I want to do. Really, that's all it is.
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