Ernest Gaines Quotes

Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?

I want you to show them the difference between what they think you are and what you can be.

I have no more to say except this: We must live with our own conscience.

How do people come up with a date and a time to take life from another man? Who made them God?

Nietzsche said without music, life would be a mistake. To me, without books, life would be a mistake.

There will always be men struggling to change, and there will always be those who are controlled by the past.

And that's all we are Jefferson, all of us on this earth, a piece of drifting wood. until we - each of us, individually- decide to become something else. I am still that piece of drifting wood, and those out there are no better. But you can be better.

You've got to bend with the wind or you're broken.

Everything's been said, but it needs saying again.

Do I know what a man is ? Do I know how a man is supposed to die ? I’m still trying to find out how a man should live. Am I supposed to tell someone how to die who has never lived ?

He told us that most of us would die violently, and those who did not would be brought down to the level of beasts.

Only when the mind is free has the body a chance to be free. Yes, they must believe, they must believe. Because I know what it means to be a slave. I am a slave.

It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle.

Sometimes you got to hurt something to help something. Sometimes you have to plow under one thing in order for something else to grow.

...my heart may have been in it but my soul was not.

Anytime a child is born, the old people look in his face and ask him if he's the One.

I tried to decide just how I should respond to them. Whether I should act like the teacher that I was, or like the nigger that I was supposed to be.

Plege legen toda flag. Ninety state. ’Merica. Er—er—yeah, which it stand. Visibly. Amen.

Read. Read. Read. Write. Write. Write.

I think it's God that makes people care for people, Jefferson. I think it's God makes children play and people sing. I believe it's God that brings loved ones together. I believe it's God that makes trees bud and food grow out of the earth.

That's man's way. To prove something. Day in, day out he must prove he is a man. Poor Fool.

wanted to be there to say good-bye to him. No matter what a person does, there ought to be somebody on his side at the last moment.

If I ain’t nothing but trouble, you ain’t nothing but Nothing.

Tell Nannan I walked.

My master jecked up my dress and gived my mistress the whip and told her to teach me a lesson. Every time she hit me she asked me what I said my name was. I said Jane Brown. She hit me again: what I said my name was. I said Jane Brown.

The sky blue blue, Mr. Wiggins.

We ain't giving up," I said. "We done gone this far.

good by mr wigin tell them im strong tell them im a man good by mr wigin im gon ax paul if he can bring you this sincely jefferson

Then he spoke of James Joyce. He told about Joyce’s family, his religion, his education, his writing. He spoke of a book called Dubliners and a story in the book titled “Ivy Day in the Committee Room.” Regardless of race, regardless of class, that story was universal, he said.

The artist must be like a heart surgeon. He must approach something with sympathy, but with a sort of coldness and work and work until he finds some kind of perfection in his work. You can't have blood splashing all over the place. Things must be done very cleanly.

No matter what you do, no matter how hard you work, how much you love, they catch you off guard one day and break you.

I hope when I die, they won't put on my tombstone, 'He wrote Miss Jane Pittman.' Put anything else, but don't put just that.

Ain't we all been hurt by slavery?

both of them, then he leaned over and pulled back the raincoat for a second, and flung it back with the same fury. Now he was

Writing is too goddamned hard for me to think about a soul in teh world ... I don't think about a soul, but just try to get those goddamned characters to act right.

Well, in San Francisco if someone's against you, they know how to vote you out of an area. If someone's against you in Louisiana, or if I wrote a book and they did not like it or me in Louisiana, they might shoot me anytime.

The heavier the burden, the longer they look at you. And Miss Julie looked at me a long, long time.

Memories wasn't a place, memories was in the mind.

I spoke to the Old Man a couple of times, but I’m sure He didn’t hear a word I said. He had quit listening to man a million years ago. Now all He does is play chess by Himself or sit around playing solitary with old cards.

We've only been living in these ghettos for seventy-five years or so, but the other three hundred years -- I think this is worth writing about. I think we've made tremendous sacrifices, we've shown tremendous strength. In the ghetto you see a lot of frustration; you see very little strength.

Go and be fish again.

it look like the lord just work for wite folks

I like the sound of people's voices, and I think what a man says can very well tell what he's thinking, whether he's lying or not.

if you keep a distance to get a respect, keep a distance to keep the respect

Question everything. Every stripe, every star, every word spoken. Everything.

We must live with our own conscience. Each and every one of us must live with his own conscience.

I don't care what a man is. I mean, a great artist is like a great doctor. I don't care how racist he is. If he can show me how to operate on a heart so that I can cure a brother, or cure someone else, I don't give a damn what the man thinks; he has taught me something. And that is valuable to me. And that is valuable to others and man as a whole.

I had heard the same carols all my life, seen the same little play, with the same mistakes in grammar. The minister had offered the same prayer as always, Christmas or Sunday. The same people wore the same old clothes and sat in the same places. Next year it would be the same, and the year after that, the same again. Vivian said things were changing. But where were they changing?

It was the kind of "here" your mother or your big sister or your great-aunt or your grandmother would have said. It was the kind of "here" that let you know this was hard-earned money but, also, that you needed it more than she did, and the kind of "here" that said she wished you had it and didn't have to borrow it from her, but since you did not have it, and she did, then "here" it was, with a kind of love. It was the kind of "here" that asked the question, When will all this end? When will a man not have to struggle to have money to get what he needs "here"? When will a man be able to live without having to kill another man "here"?

So now it had started. Now they were going to give him a taste of what it meant to kill and then let yourself be bonded out of jail. They were going to let him know (not that they cared a hoot for the other boy) that he wasn’t tough as he thought he was.

By slow, thoughtful watching, you can gain much, as against working up a wild, panicky condition.

You wanted the past changed, Reverend Martin,” she told him. “Even He can’t do that. So that leaves nothing but the future. We work toward the future.

My six words of advice to writers are: "Read, read, read, write, write, write.

The mark of fear is not easily removed.

Me, Mr Wiggins. Me. Me to take the cross. Your cross, Nannan's cross, my own cross. Me, Mr Wiggins. This old stumbling nigger. Y'all axe a lot, Mr Wiggins.

Do you know what a myth is, Jefferson?" I asked him. "A myth is an old lie that people believe in. White people believe that they're better than anyone else on earth--and that's a myth. The last thing they ever want is to see a black man stan, and think, and show that common humanity that is in us all. It would destroy their myth. They would no longer have justification of having made us slaves and keeping us in the condition we are in. As long as none of us stand, they're safe. They're safe with me. They're safe with Reverend Ambrose. I don't want them to feel safe with you anymore.

That's what life is about, doing as good as you can. When the times comes for them to lay you down in the long black hole, they can say one thing: 'He did as good as he could.' That's the best thing you can say for a man. Horse breaker or yard sweeper, let them say the poor boy did it good as he could.

I was not there, yet I was there. No, I did not go to the trial, I did not hear the verdict, because I knew all the time what it would be. Still, I was there. I was there as much as anyone else was there.

I didn’t want to show it. Because if what he was saying was true, there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. Marshall was too big. If it was just Bonbon who wanted to hurt Marcus, you might be able to prevent that. Bonbon was nothing but a poor white man, and sometimes you could go to the rich white man for help. But where did you go when it was the rich white man? You couldn’t even go to the law, because he was the law. He was police, he was judge, he was jury.

Your thought, operating through the Law of Life, can meet your need, convert fear into faith, loss into gain, failure into success. Act as though you already had dominion over evil. Refuse to entertain images of fear. Know that good is the only power there is.

And I thought to myself, What am I doing? Am I reaching them at all? They are acting exactly as the old men did earlier. They are fifty years younger, maybe more, but doing the same thing those old men did who never attended school a day in their lives. Is it just a vicious circle? Am I doing anything?

So that’s why he needed me, that’s why he wanted me to go with them. Not that a white man couldn’t ride all over the South with a black woman, but if they were traveling in daytime by themselves, the black woman had to look like she was either going to work or coming from work. It wouldn’t be safe for her to be dressed like Pauline was now or to have that powder smelling on her breast like Pauline did now. No, they wouldn’t say anything to Bonbon; they probably wouldn’t say anything to Pauline in front of Bonbon. But if they caught her by herself they would definitely remind her to never do it again.

had two reasons. Ned was by himself in this world, except for me, and I didn’t want no man and no children spiting him just because he was an orphan. The other reason I never looked at a man, I was barren. An old woman on the place had told me that. I went to her one day and told her how my body act and didn’t act. After we had sat down and talked a while, she said one word: “Barren.” I went to a doctor and he told me the same thing: “You barren, all right.

But the funny thing about all this, Marcus didn’t know Louise had been looking at him for a week already. If he had, I doubt if he would have wanted Louise. Because, you see, he wanted her only for revenge. He wanted to get to her, not her getting to him. He wanted to clown for her, he probably would have stood on his head for her, probably would have walked on his hands for her—until he got into those drawers. Then that would have been the end. If they lynched him after, it wouldn’t have meant a thing. Because, you see, they couldn’t take away what he had got. No, he probably would have laughed at his lynchers.

One gains, the other loses, and only the weaklings are bothered with that.

a journey becomes a pilgrimage as we discover, day by day, that the distance traveled is less important than the experience gained.

like Ned was killed. We made her go and we hired

I’d finally gained enough distance from my addiction to realize something. Human beings were never meant to participate in a worldwide social network comprised of billions of people.

It came from a piece of old wood that he found in the yard somewhere. That's what we all are, Jefferson, all of us on this earth, a piece of drifting wood, until we—each one of us, individually—decide to become something else. I am still that piece of drifting wood, and those out there are no better. But you can be better. Because we need you to be and want you to be.

Monday, twelve o’clock, Marcus started looking at Bonbon’s wife. He was riding on the tractor with me, and as we went by the house I saw him looking at her on the gallery. I didn’t think too much of it then because I thought he was still hooked on Pauline. But Louise had seen him looking at her, and when we came back down the quarter I saw how she had shifted that chair so she could face the road better. Marcus looked at her again but he didn’t say anything to me about her. Since I didn’t think he was looking at her on purpose, I didn’t say anything either.

Why?” I kept on asking myself. “Why? Who is this boy and why?” I knew that white men bonded colored boys out of jail for a few hundred dollars and worked them until they had gotten all their money back two and three times over. But I was trying to figure out why Marshall Hebert would do this when he already had more people than he needed. Now I knew. This little old lady had the finger on him, too.

He had told us then that most of us would die violently, and those who did not would be brought down to the level of beasts. Told us that there was no other choice but to run and run. That he was living testimony of someone who should have run. That in him—he did not say all this, but we felt it—there was nothing but hatred for himself as well as contempt for us. He hated himself for the mixture of his blood and the cowardice of his being, and he hated us for daily reminding him of it. No, he did not tell us this, but daily he showed us this. As clearly as anything, he showed his hatred for himself, and for us. He could teach any of us only one thing, and that one thing was flight. Because there was no freedom here. He said it, and he didn’t say it. But we felt it. When we told our people how we felt, they told us to go back and learn all we could. There were those who did go back to learn. Others who only went back. And having no place to run, they went into the fields; others went into the small towns and cities, seeking work, and did even worse.

Brevity Is Best: Nicknamed "Silent Cal," President Calvin Coolidge was once challenged by a reporter, saying, "I bet someone that I could get more than two words out of you." Coolidge responded, "You lose." The notion of crafting six word memoirs really took off after Smith Magazine shared this poignant one written by Ernest Hemingway: "For Sale: baby shoes, never worn." Pithiness Pays Off For Other Reasons: When required to be brief, for example, we gain clarity about what we really mean -- or have to offer. As Mark Twain once wrote, in a slower-paced time, "I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.

The collected knowledge, art, and amusements of all human civilization were there, waiting for me. But gaining access to all of that information turned out to be something of a mixed blessing. Because that was when I found out the truth.

Jefferson needs something in that cell,” I said. “Yes, he do,” the minister said. “You hit the nail on the head, mister. Yes, he do. But not that box.” “And what do you suggest, Reverend Ambrose?” I asked. “God,” the minister said. “He ain’t got but five more Fridays and a half. He needs God in that cell, and not that sin box.” “What sin box?” I said. “What you call that kind of music he listen to?” the minister asked. “Us standing in there trying to talk to him, and him listening to that thing till she got to reach over and turn it off—what you call it?” “I call it company, Reverend Ambrose,” I said. “And I call it sin company,” he said. “And I don’t care what you call it!” I said to him.

I am a center in the Divine Mind, a point of God-conscious life, truth and action. My affairs are divinely guided and guarded into right action, into correct results. Everything I do, say or think, is stimulated by the Truth. There is power in this word that I speak, because it is of the Truth and it is the Truth. There is perfect and continuous right action in my life and my affairs. All belief in wrong action is dispelled and made negative. Right action alone has power and right action is power, and Power is God... the Living Spirit Almighty. This Spirit animates everything that I do, say or think. Ideas come to me daily and these ideas are divine ideas. They direct me and sustain me without effort. I am continuously directed. I am compelled to do the right thing at the right time, to say the right word at the right time, to follow the right course at all times. “All suggestion of age, poverty, limitation or unhappiness is uprooted from my mind and cannot gain entrance to my thought. I am happy, well and filled with perfect Life. I live in the Spirit of Truth and am conscious that the Spirit of Truth lives in me. My word is the law unto its own manifestation, and will bring to me or cause me to be brought to its fulfillment. There is no unbelief, no doubt, no uncertainty. I know and I know that I know. Let every thought of doubt vanish from my mind that I may know the Truth and the Truth may make me free.

That's why you look down on me, because you know I lie. At wakes, at funerals, at weddings - yes, I lie. I lie at wakes and funerals to relieve pain. 'Cause reading, writing, and 'rithmetic is not enough. You think that's all the sent you to school for? They send you to school to relieve pain, to relieve hurt - and if you have to lie to do it, then you lie. You lie and you lie and you lie. When you tell yourself you feeling good when you sick, you lying. When you tell other people you feeling well when you feeling sick, you lying. You tell them that 'cause they have pain too, and you don't want to add yours - and you lie. She been lying every day of her life, your aunt in there. That's how you got through that university - cheating herself here, cheating herself there, but always telling you she's all right. I've seen her hands bleed from picking cotton. I've seen the blisters from the hoe and the cane knife. At that church, crying on her knees. You ever looked at the scabs on her knees, boy? Course you never. 'Cause she never wanted you to see it. And that's the difference between me and you, boy; that make me the educated one, and you the gump. I know my people. I know what they gone through. I know they done cheated themself, lied to themself - hoping that one they all love and trust can come back and help relieve the pain.

Irene and my aunt want from me what Miss Emma wants from Jefferson,' I said. 'I don't know if Miss Emma ever had anybody in her past that she could be proud of. Possibly - maybe not. But she wants that now, and she wants it from him. Irene and my aunt want it from me. Miss Emma knows that the state of Louisiana is about to take his life, but before that happens she wants something to remember him by. Irene and my aunt know that one day I will leave them, but they are not about to let me go without a fight. It's the same thing, the very same thing. Miss Emma needs a memory. Do you want she told me when I sat on the bed? That Reverend Ambrose and I should get along, and together - together - we should try and reach Jefferson. Why not the soul? No, she wants memories, memories of him standing like a man.

For the next half hour it continued. Dr. Joseph would call on someone who looked half bright, then he would call on someone whom he felt was just the opposite. In the upper grades—fourth, fifth, and sixth—he asked grammatical, mathematical, and geographical questions. And besides looking at hands, now he began inspecting teeth. Open wide, say “Ahhh”—and he would have the poor children spreading out their lips as far as they could while he peered into their mouths. At the university I had read about slave masters who had done the same when buying new slaves, and I had read of cattlemen doing it when purchasing horses and cattle. At least Dr. Joseph had graduated to the level where he let the children spread out their own lips, rather than using some kind of crude metal instrument. I appreciated his humanitarianism.

And so, it is not our own life that we live, but the lives of the dead, and the soul that dwells within us is no single spiritual entity, making us personal and individual, created for our service, and entering into us for our joy. It is something that has dwelt in fearful places, and in ancient sepulchres has made its abode. It is sick with many maladies, and has memories of curious sins. It is wiser than we are, and its wisdom is bitter. It fills us with impossible desires, and makes us follow what we know we cannot gain. One thing, however, Ernest, it can do for us. It can lead us away from surroundings whose beauty is dimmed to us by the mist of familiarity, or whose ignoble ugliness and sordid claims are marring the perfection of our development. It can help us to leave the age in which we were born, and to pass into other ages, and find ourselves not exiled from their air. It can teach us how to escape from our experience, and to realise the experiences of those who are greater than we are. The pain of Leopardi crying out against life becomes our pain. Theocritus blows on his pipe, and we laugh with the lips of nymph and shepherd. In the wolfskin of Pierre Vidal we flee before the hounds, and in the armour of Lancelot we ride from the bower of the Queen. We have whispered the secret of our love beneath the cowl of Abelard, and in the stained raiment of Villon have put our shame into song. We can see the dawn through Shelley's eyes, and when we wander with Endymion the Moon grows amorous of our youth. Ours is the anguish of Atys, and ours the weak rage and noble sorrows of the Dane. Do you think that it is the imagination that enables us to live these countless lives? Yes: it is the imagination; and the imagination is the result of heredity. It is simply concentrated race-experience.

Let me pass, Marcus,” Pauline was saying. “I’m telling you, now.” “What he got on you?” Marcus said. “What’s the matter with you, woman?” “I’m telling you, let me pass,” Pauline said. “What’s the matter with you?” he said. “I been working up there all night like a slave, like a dog—and all on ’count of him. What’s the matter with you?” “I’m telling you,” she said. “Let me pass.” He moved closer. “Don’t you put your hands on me,” she said. “I mean it, don’t you put your hands on me, you killer.” He hit her and knocked her down. She got up. “If I tell him, he’ll kill you for this. He’ll kill you.” “You white man bitch,” he said. He hit her again. She fell again. “Leave that woman ’lone, boy,” Pa Bully hollered at him. “Mr. Grant,” Aunt Ca’line said, warningly. “You hear me out there, boy?” Pa Bully called. Pauline was up again. “You bitch,” Marcus said to her. “You bloody whore.” She was running toward the gate now. “You whore,” he called to her. She was running in the yard now. She ran in the house and locked the door. He stood there a while looking at the house; then he went on.

It came from a piece of old wood that he found in the yard somewhere. That's what we all are, Jefferson, all of us on this earth, a piece of drifting wood, until we--each one of us, individually--decide to become something else. I am still that piece of drifting wood, and those out there are no better. But you can be better. Because we need you to be and want you to be." --Grant

The last thing they ever want is to see a black man stand, and think, and show that common humanity that is in us all. It would destroy their myth. They would no longer have the justification for having made us slaves and keeping us in the condition we are in. As long as none of us stand, they're safe. They're safe with me. They're safe with Reverend Ambrose. I don't want them to feel safe with you any more.

They had chopped wood here too; then they were gone. Gone to the fields, the small towns, the cities – where they died. There was always news coming back to the quarter about someone who had been killed or who had been sent to prison for killing someone else: Snowball, stabbed to death in a nightclub in Port Allen; Claudee, killed by a woman in New Orleans; Smitty, sent to the state penitentiary for manslaughter. And there were others who did not go anywhere but simply died slower

I’d finally gained enough distance from my addiction to realize something. Human beings were never meant to participate in a worldwide social network comprised of billions of people. We were designed by evolution to be hunter-gatherers, with the mental capacity to interact and socialize with the other members of our tribe—a tribe made up of a few hundred other people at most. Interacting with thousands or even millions of other people on a daily basis was way too much for our ape-descended melons to handle. That was why social media had been gradually driving the entire population of the world insane since it emerged back around the turn of the century.

I’d finally gained enough distance from my addiction to realize something. Human beings were never meant to participate in a worldwide social network comprised of billions of people. We were designed by evolution to be hunter-gatherers, with the mental capacity to interact and socialize with the other members of our tribe—a tribe made up of a few hundred other people at most. Interacting with thousands or even millions of other people on a daily basis was way too much for our ape-descended melons to handle. That was why social media had been gradually driving the entire population of the world insane since it emerged back around the turn of the century. I was even beginning to wonder if the invention of a worldwide social network was actually the “Great Filter” that theoretically caused all technological civilizations to go extinct, instead of nuclear weapons or climate change. Maybe every time an intelligent species grew advanced enough to invent a global computer network, they would then develop some form of social media, which would immediately fill these beings with such an intense hatred for one another that they ended up wiping themselves out within four or five decades.

Many such an official, upon winning a foothold in City Hall, thinks only of his own cohorts, and his own gain. So it is not surprising that public affairs grow stagnant. Truly, cannot fathom such minds! I can think of nothing so satisfying as doing public good in as many ways as an official can. Think, for an instant, as to just what a city is. As I said long ago, it is not an array of buildings, parks and fountains. No. A city is a living thing! It is, actually, human;for it is a group of humanity growing up in daily contact; and if officials adopt as a slogan, “all I can do,” and not “all I can grab,” only its suburban boundary can limit its growth.

But that did no harm, and a sad young mind found a way to match things up with an antagonist. Now, just stand a child up against your body. How tall is it? Possibly only up to your hip. Still, a man,—or an animal thinking that it is a man—will slap, whip, or viciously yank an arm of so frail, so soft a tiny body! That is what I call a coward!! By golly! almost a criminal! If a tot is what you call naughty, (and no child voluntarily is,) why not lift that young body up onto your lap, and talk—don’t shout—about what it just did? Shouting gains nothing with a tot. Man can shout at Man, at dogs, and at farm animals; but a man who shouts at a child is, at that instant, sinking in his own muck of bullyism; and bullyism is a sin, if anything in this world is. Ah Youth! You glorious dawn of Mankind! You bright, happy, glowing morning Sun; not at full brilliancy of noon, I know, but unavoidably on your way! Youth! How I do thrill at taking your warm, soft hand; walking with you; talking with you; but, most important of all, laughing with you! That is Man’s pathway to glory. A man who drops blossoms in passing, will carry joy to folks along his way; a man who drops crumbs will also do a kindly act; but a man who drops kind words to a sobbing child will find his joy continuing for many a day; for blossoms will dry up; crumbs may blow away; but a kind word to a child may start a blossom growing in that young mind, which will so far surpass what an unkindly man might drop, as an orchid will surpass a wisp of grass. Just stop a bit and look back at your footprints along your past pathway. Did you put many humps in that soil which a small child might trip on? Did you angrily slam a door, which might so jolt a high-strung tot as to bring on nights and nights of insomnia? Did you so constantly snarl at it that it don’t want you around? In fact, did you put anything in that back-path of yours which could bring sorrow to a child? Or start its distrust of you, as its rightful guardian? If so, go back right now, man, and fix up such spots by kindly acts from now on. Or, jump into a pond, and don’t crawl out again!! For nobody wants you around!

Even evil is just the fear of death. "Our heroic projects that are aimed at destroying evil have the paradoxical effect of bringing more evil into the world. Human conflicts are life and death struggles—my gods against your gods, my immortality project against your immortality project. The root of humanly caused evil is not man’s animal nature, not territorial aggression, or innate selfishness, but our need to gain self-esteem, deny our mortality, and achieve a heroic self-image. Our desire for the best is the cause of the worst. We want to clean up the world, make it perfect, keep it safe for democracy or communism, purify it of the enemies of god, eliminate evil, establish an alabaster city undimmed by human tears, or a thousand year Reich." "Our heroic projects that are aimed at destroying evil have the paradoxical effect of bringing more evil into the world. Human conflicts are life and death struggles—my gods against your gods, my immortality project against your immortality project. The root of humanly caused evil is not man’s animal nature, not territorial aggression, or innate selfishness, but our need to gain self-esteem, deny our mortality, and achieve a heroic self-image. Our desire for the best is the cause of the worst. We want to clean up the world, make it perfect, keep it safe for democracy or communism, purify it of the enemies of god, eliminate evil, establish an alabaster city undimmed by human tears, or a thousand year Reich.

The idea of a poor, starving family could not be more heartbreaking, but to watch Jim portray a man who slices into an imaginary steak while marveling over a weight-gaining son was endlessly entertaining.

But I was here then, and I don’t see it now, and that’s why I did it. I did it for them back there under them trees. I did it ’cause that tractor is getting closer and closer to that graveyard, and I was scared if I didn’t do it, one day that tractor was go’n come in there and plow up them graves, getting rid of all proof that we ever was. Like now they trying to get rid of all proof that black people ever farmed this land with plows and mules—like if they had nothing from the starten but motor machines. Sure, one day they will get rid of the proof that we ever was, but they ain’t go’n do it while I’m still here. Mama and Papa worked too hard in these fields. They mama and they papa worked too hard in these same fields. They mama and they papa people worked too hard, too hard to have that tractor just come in that graveyard and destroy all proof that they ever was. I’m the last one left. I had to see that the graves stayed for a little while longer. But I just didn’t do it for my own people. I did it for every last one back there under them trees. And I did it for every four-o’clock, every rosebush, every palm-of-Christian ever growed on this place.

They had chopped wood here too; then they were gone. Gone to the fields, the small towns, the cities – where they died. There was always news coming back to the quarter about someone who had been killed or who had been sent to prison for killing someone else: Snowball, stabbed to death in a nightclub in Port Allen; Claudee, killed by a woman in New Orleans; Smitty, sent to the state penitentiary for manslaughter. And there were others who did not go anywhere but simply died slower

Choosing a religion, says philosopher Ernest Gellner, has become akin to choosing a wallpaper pattern or menu item—an area of life where it is considered acceptable to act on purely personal taste or feelings. Most people do not look to spirituality for an explanatory system to answer the cosmic questions of life. Instead they choose their spirituality based on what meets their emotional needs and helps them cope with personal issues, from losing weight to gaining self-confidence. But, when “serious issues are at stake” like making money or meeting medical needs, Gellner says, then people want solutions based on “real knowledge.”7 They want to know the tested outcomes of objective science and research.

His book For Whom the Bell Tolls was an instant success in the summer of 1940, and afforded him the means to live in style at his villa outside of Havana with his new wife Mary Welsh, whom he married in 1946. It was during this period that he started getting headaches and gaining weight, frequently becoming depressed. Being able to shake off his problems, he wrote a series of books on the Land, Air and Sea, and later wrote The Old Man and the Sea for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in May 1954. Hemingway on a trip to Africa where he barely survived two successive airplane crashes. Returning to Cuba, Ernest worked reshaping the recovered work and wrote his memoir, A Moveable Feast. He also finished True at First Light and The Garden of Eden. Being security conscious, he stored his works in a safe deposit box at a bank in Havana. His home Finca Vigía had become a hub for friends and even visiting tourists. It was reliably disclosed to me that he frequently enjoyed swinger’s parties and orgies at his Cuban home. In Spain after divorcing Frank Sinatra Hemingway introduced Ava Gardner to many of the bullfighters he knew and in a free for all, she seduced many of hotter ones. After Ava Gardner’s affair with the famous Spanish bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguín crashed, she came to Cuba and stayed at Finca Vigía, where she had what was termed to be a poignant relationship with Ernest. Ava Gardner swam nude in the pool, located down the slope from the Hemingway house, after which he told his staff that the water was not to be emptied. An intimate friendship grew between Hemingway’s forth and second wife, Mary and Pauline. Pauline often came to Finca Vigia, in the early 1950s, and likewise Mary made the crossing of the Florida Straits, back to Key West several times. The ex-wife and the current wife enjoyed gossiping about their prior husbands and lovers and had choice words regarding Ernest. In 1959, Hemingway was in Cuba during the revolution, and was delighted that Batista, who owned the nearby property, that later became the location of the dismal Pan Americana Housing Development, was overthrown. He shared the love of fishing with Fidel Castro and remained on good terms with him. Reading the tea leaves, he decided to leave Cuba after hearing that Fidel wanted to nationalize the properties owned by Americans and other foreign nationals. In the summer of 1960, while working on a manuscript for Life magazine, Hemingway developed dementia becoming disorganized and confused. His eyesight had been failing and he became despondent and depressed. On July 25, 1960, he and his wife Mary left Cuba for the last time. He never retrieved his books or the manuscripts that he left in the bank vault. Following the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban government took ownership of his home and the works he left behind, including an estimated 5,000 books from his personal library. After years of neglect, his home, which was designed by the Spanish architect Miguel Pascual y Baguer in 1886, has now been largely restored as the Hemingway Museum. The museum, overlooking San Francisco de Paula, as well as the Straits of Florida in the distance, houses much of his work as well as his boat housed near his pool.

He and B.B. subtly conveyed messages of equality and integration. Elvis had nothing to gain for taking such a public stance.

I am very pleased to meet you, Mister True,” said the man as he reached out to shake True’s hand. He was careful to look the angel in the eye, as he hooked his cane handle into his trousers pocket so as to free up his left hand, which he also used to shake True’s hand. “Thank you for coming over to me, sir. As you can see, I am far from agile these days.” His speech was slow, but quite deliberate and poised. “My name is Ernest Mansfield, and I came out here to tell you that I realized tonight, during your speech, that I have been a fool all of my life. I thank you for the many rebukes in your speech. You pegged me well for the fool that I am. I got caught up early in the idea that my party is better than the other, and I never stopped to realize—like you said tonight—that the party I chose is itself corrupt enough to ruin this nation on its own.” True continued to listen patiently as the man spoke, still holding True’s hand in both of his own. “I am ninety-eight years old, and I have been a sucker for this partisan trap all my life.” Those last three words got to the old man as he spoke them. He began to sob, dropping his head forward. Benjamin True put his left hand on the man’s shoulder and remained quiet, trusting that the man needed no help to express himself. “I don’t know how long I have left on this planet, but obviously, my days are short,” Ernest Mansfield continued, gaining more control over his emotions. On my way over here, I laughed at myself that it should take me ninety-eight years to learn such a simple lesson. But at least I’ve learned it now, and I can correct myself from here forward.” The angel smiled at him and said, “Yes, you can!” “Well,” continued the man, “I won’t keep you any longer, as I’m sure you have many more people to see. I came out here to pay my respects to a man who dared to tell me the truth, and I’ve done it. And so I bid you good night, sir.” “I am very glad to have met you, and I thank you for coming to find me. May your time from now on be more fruitful than you would imagine! Good night to you, as well, Ernest Mansfield.

Sales conversations are founded on “seduction”, a form of courtship a seller initiates in order to win the prospect’s trust in conversation before engaging into actual product selling. Marketing resorts to courtship as well when marketers gain their market’s attention with promises of a better future and more satisfactory situations. Whatever our role at work, we are all in sales and marketing, whether we like it or not. This is particularly true of technical performers who intend to hold a pivotal role for aligning technology with business needs. Mobile disposition in its higher form cultivates courtship essential for building strong and trustworthy relationships with other actors in a business enterprise.