Kiese Laymon Quotes

• Black is not a vice. Nor is segregation a virtue.

  Kiese Laymon

  Black, Vices, Virtue

  Kiese Laymon (2013). “Long Division”, p.3, Agate Publishing

  5 Copy quote

• Not so deep down, we all know that safety is an illusion, that only character melds us together. That’s why most of us do everything we can (healthy and unhealthy) to ward off that real feeling of standing alone so close to the edge of the world.

  Kiese Laymon

  Real, Character, Safety

  Kiese Laymon (2016). “How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America”, p.72, Bloomsbury Publishing

  13 Copy quote

• I write two hours in the morning and two hours before bed no matter. No matter what. I also write during the day if I have to get something down, but the four hours a day is the one thing in my life I don't fool with.

  Kiese Laymon

  Morning, Writing, Two

  Source: therumpus.net

  5 Copy quote

• I'm an obsessive writer who needs and loves revision. Writing helps me learn and helps me teach.

  Kiese Laymon

  Writing, And Love, Needs

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• I wish every American explored the importance of novel writing, identity, honesty, character and place in fresh-ass ways.

  Kiese Laymon

  Honesty, Writing, Character

  Source: therumpus.net

  7 Copy quote

• In essay writing, I'm trying to push the form of expository writing. I'm trying to remember, trying to reckon, trying to find connections with the world, the nation and me, but I'm always trying to push the form, too, without being too obvious that I'm trying to push the form.

  Kiese Laymon

  Writing, Always Trying, Connections

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• First of all, the novel should be a critique of the novels that have come before it in a language that broadens the audience of American literature. Second, it's really got to be invested in a number of what-if questions.

  Kiese Laymon

  Numbers, What If, Literature

  Source: therumpus.net

  7 Copy quote

• One of the problems with a lot of "confessional" writing is that it starts and stops with the confessional and doesn't really tie the "I" into a "we" at all. I'm still surprised at how mad critics get at that kind of confessional writing.

  Kiese Laymon

  Writing, Ties, Mad

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• I allude to Back to the Future in the 1985 story to let folks know it was an inspiration and because it literally was the most time-travelly bit of pop culture we had in the mid 80's. I can talk about their tools for considering change. First, the book is metafictive in a traditional sense where I'm showing and telling the reader that the act of writing and reading is a reflexive way to push boundaries of real and literal time travel. Writers and readers are time travellers. The question is what we do with that time we traveled when we leave a book, leave a page.

  Kiese Laymon

  Real, Book, Inspiration

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• I'm not good enough as a person and definitely not good enough as a writer.

  Kiese Laymon

  Not Good Enough, Good Enough, Enough

  Source: therumpus.net

  6 Copy quote

• I'm a black writer from Mississippi. That's what I most consider myself.

  Kiese Laymon

  Black, Mississippi

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• The "How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others" essay was so hard to write because of the memories, the sensory stuff, but also because it didn't follow the form of any essay that I've ever read. And the truth that I was exploring necessitated that obliteration of traditional form, I think.

  Kiese Laymon

  Memories, Writing, Thinking

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• I'm interested in how the confessional is so abrasively critiqued today. I'm not really comfortable with simply confessing but I do think "confessing" is a major part of reckoning.

  Kiese Laymon

  Thinking, Today, Reckoning

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• I'm also, than anything else, a teacher and a student. And without the four hours, I'm pretty monsterish. For real.

  Kiese Laymon

  Teacher, Real, Four

  Source: therumpus.net

  6 Copy quote

• I'm accountable - this sounds emo - to black American writing, Southern writing, Southern black American writing, American writing and my people. That's kind of what keeps me accountable.

  Kiese Laymon

  Emo, Writing, People

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• I wanted to create a book that was unafraid of black bodies, yet super interested in thinking about the relationship of love to body and sexuality without relying on tired understandings of "gay" "bi" or "straight."

  Kiese Laymon

  Book, Tired, Gay

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• Long Division has a lot of Afrosurrealist impulses. I think the book was more Afrofuturist when it was like 700 pages.

  Kiese Laymon

  Book, Thinking, Long

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

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