American - Novelist | -
It just so happens that I was born and raised in Washington. Had I been born in Chicago or San Antonio, the streets and places would have figured into whatever I wrote. Just so happens that it's Washington, D.C.
Edward P. Jones
BornChicagoWashingtonPlacesBeen
In the summer of 1964, my sister and I went to South Ballston, Virginia, to stay with my aunt and her kids. They passed the civil rights bill that summer; my cousins were so happy because now they could swim in the pool.
HappySisterPoolSummerNowAunt
From my apartment in Arlington, I could see Washington. It was always nice to be near home.
HomeNiceWashingtonAlwaysSee
I've never been comfortable with the idea of using family and friends in stories. Which is why it takes me longer than something else. Because you make them up out of nothing. Doing that is harder.
FamilyMeFriendsDoingYouNothing
People seem to have trouble with the imagination. They can't believe that you can just pull things out of your brain like that.
ImaginationPeopleBrainBelieveYou
I never like to put myself in the stories; in 'Lost in the City,' there are fourteen stories, and there's only one, 'The First Day,' about a little girl going to school, that has anything to do with me.
GirlMyselfDaySchoolCityMe
Those of us with this ancient compulsion to tell stories sometimes start with a single kernel of something.
StartSometimesSingleTellAncient
I have said with as much sincerity as I can muster that if I were thrown into a dungeon with a sentence of one hundred years, with my only company being an illiterate guard who came twice a day with meals but who never spoke, I would still write - on coarse toilet paper in the dark if I could spare it.
DayDarkI CanSaidNeverSincerity
There are those who write because they believe they have something so marvelous that it will make them famous and wealthy, a lauded commodity who will be invited to a lifetime of cocktail parties.
BelieveFamousWillWriteCocktail
Something happened during the 1980s - perhaps the political climate of that time - that caused me to ask how a people would become part of a system that oppresses their own people.
TimePeopleMePoliticalBecomeAsk
When you grow up with a mother who has to wash dishes and clean hotel rooms, you know the importance of having a job, and you can't be without a job for any length of time, or you will be without anything.
MotherTimeJobGrowHotelYou
You don't go to the library and walk along and pick out a topic. You are riding the bus, or shopping at Safeway, and all of a sudden the idea comes to you.
WalkShoppingLibraryYouGoRiding
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