I believe that all literatures can have political uses and misuses. Sometimes politics can enhance, sometimes it can get in the way of imaginative literature. . . . I'm not sure one can be a creative writer and a politician -- not a "good" politician.
Gayl JonesWhen you tell a story you automatically talk about traditions, but they're never separate from the people, the human implications. You're talking about your connections as a human being.
Gayl JonesA lot of people they donโt know that Africans even named the stars, that different peoples, different so-called native peoples, have their own names for the stars, and have star charts just as accurate as the Chinese star charts, which are more ancient than the European star charts or even the Arabic ones or the star charts of the New World civilizations. Everybodyโs got their own cosmology. Everybodyโs got their own description of the universe.
Gayl JonesMy great-grandmama told my grandmama the part she lived through that my grandmama didn't live through and my grandmama told my mama what they both lived through and my mama told me what they all lived through and we were suppose to pass it down like that from generation to generation so we'd never forget.
Gayl Jones