Tayari Jones Quotes
I take mentoring very seriously and I am on the board of an organization called Girls Write Now, where we match teen girls and writing mentors because it changes their lives.
I take mentoring very seriously and as a result I hardly get any work done during the school year.
Remember that the writing itself is good for you. If your story is so close to home that you are afraid to write it, it probably means you need to write it.
This is what I have come to know: Our past is never passed and there is no such thing as moving on. But there is this telling and there is such a thing as passing through.
When it comes to memoir, we want to catch the author in a lie. When we read fiction, we want to catch the author telling the truth.
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.
Abandonment doesn't have the sharp but dissipating sting of a slap. It's like a punch to the gut, bruising your skin and driving the precious air from your body.
It's funny how three or four notes of anger can be struck at once, creating the perfect chord of fury.
People say, That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger. But they are wrong. What doesn't kill you doesn't kill you. That's all you get. Sometimes, you just have to hope that's enough.
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.
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.
Dwelling on pain, spending too much time immersed in it, tasting its flavors, fingering its textures--this makes it only more potent.
People say, that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger. But they are wrong. What doesn't kill you, doesn't kill you.
