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Kiese Laymon Quotes

Writer

Kiese Laymon is an American writer known for his profound personal narratives and critical explorations of race, gender, and identity. His work often focuses on the experiences of black Americans, particularly the black community in Louisiana.

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All Writing Black Thinking Book Real Character Essays Firsts Form Four

Famous Kiese Laymon Quotes

“The man of courage is not the man who did not face adversity. The man of courage is the man who faced adversity and spoke to it. The man of courage tells adversity, "You're trespassing and I give you no authority to steal my joy, my faith or my hope.”

Strength Anxiety Adversity

Book:How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America

Source: How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America

“how are we ever going to be free if we only believe the things they tell us are possible”

Freedom

Book:The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story

Source: The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story

“It was actually a museum. At least that's what the sign said. It read, "The Lerthon Coldson Civil Rights Museum." It made me kind of mad that the museum was named after a grimy drunk dude who called a girl "baby," but I figured lots of museums were named for part-time losers.”

Names Museums Losers

Book:Long Division

Source: Long Division

“After reading Bambara, I wondered for the first time how great an American sentence, paragraph, or book could be if it wasn't, at least partially, written to and for black Americans in the Deep South.”

Writing America Race Blackness

Book:Heavy

Source: Heavy

“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.”

Thinking Today Comfortable Majors Reckoning Confessing

Author:Kiese Laymon

“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.”

Writing Kind Stills Problem Mad Critics Ties

Author:Kiese Laymon

“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.”

World Writing Trying Remember Form Nations Connections Obvious Essays Always Trying Essay Writing

Author:Kiese Laymon

“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.”

Thinking Writing Hard Form Stuff Memories Traditional Exploring Essays Sensory Killing Yourself

Author:Kiese Laymon

“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.”

Ifs Should Firsts Literature Language Numbers Novel Audience What If Critique American Literature

Author:Kiese Laymon

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

Way Writing Character Wish Novel Honesty Identity Importance Ass Novel Writing

Author:Kiese Laymon

“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.”

“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."”

Thinking Book Body Wanted Understanding Black Gay Tired Sexuality Unafraid

Author:Kiese Laymon

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

Black Mississippi

Author:Kiese Laymon

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

Thinking Long Book Pages Impulse Division

Author:Kiese Laymon

“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.”

Ifs Writing Two Matter Hours Morning Four One Thing Fool Bed No Matter What

Author:Kiese Laymon

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

Persons Enough Good Enough Not Good Enough

Author:Kiese Laymon

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

Needs Writing Helping Teach And Love Help Me Obsessive Revision

Author:Kiese Laymon

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

Real Hours Teacher Four Students

Author:Kiese Laymon

“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.”

People Writing Kind Sound Black Southern Emo

Author:Kiese Laymon

“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.”

Knows World Real Character Feelings Together Healthy Illusion Standing Safety Edges Deep Down Unhealthy Standing Alone Real Feelings Edge Of The World

Book:How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America

Source: How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America

“Black is not a vice. Nor is segregation a virtue.”

Black Virtue Vices Segregation

Book:Long Division

Source: Long Division

About the Author

Born: August 15, 1974
Known for: Writer
Quotes: 21

Books & Sources

How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in AmericaRelated source material

Long DivisionRelated source material

HeavyRelated source material

The 1619 Project: A New Origin StoryRelated source material

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