Whenever people in that part of the world asked Patterson about the wonders of America, the possibilities and the hope of America, Patterson would say that it was a good and fine place but all the Americans were running it into the ground and that it would be a far better place if it had no Americans.

Edward P. Jones

Categorized in : People America Running

We are all worthy of one another.

Edward P. Jones

worthiness worthy love

I'm fascinated by the awful, awful things that human beings do to each other.

Edward P. Jones

fascinated awful humans

Until I can read a story physically, with the eyes, it doesn't seem to exist for me.

Edward P. Jones

i-can-read eye stories

The hitter can never be the judge. Only the receiver of the blow can tell you how hard it was, whether it would kill a man or make a baby just yawn.

Edward P. Jones

blow baby men

In journalism, a fact is just a fact. But in fiction, you have to build your case. It has to be made, step by step.

Edward P. Jones

steps facts fiction

At first I read mostly books by Southern authors - black and white - because almost all the people I knew were born and raised in the South, starting with my mother. I remember I got a lot of Erskine Caldwell.

Edward P. Jones

black-and-white mother book

Calvin had long been uneasy in his own person and so lived to put everyone else at ease.

Edward P. Jones

uneasy ease long

A woman, no matter the age, is always learning, always becoming. But a man . . . stops learning at fourteen or so.

Edward P. Jones

age matter men

When you grow up with a mother who has to wash dishes and clean hotel rooms, you know the importance of having a job, and you cant be without a job for any length of time, or you will be without anything.

Edward P. Jones

growing-up mother jobs

My father was Catholic, and my mother wanted me to go to Catholic school. That's what I did in first grade. But she couldn't afford the payments. I think it must have hurt her a lot, not to be able to give me a Catholic education.

Edward P. Jones

me mother education father

Those of us with this ancient compulsion to tell stories sometimes start with a single kernel of something.

Edward P. Jones

something start single sometimes

I have said with as much sincerity as I can muster that if I were thrown into a dungeon with a sentence of one hundred years, with my only company being an illiterate guard who came twice a day with meals but who never spoke, I would still write - on coarse toilet paper in the dark if I could spare it.

Edward P. Jones

never day i-can dark

My mother relied on her memory to do things because she couldn't read. Part of that was not really knowing numbers.

Edward P. Jones

memory things mother numbers

I don't want to own something that you can't take into your apartment at night.

Edward P. Jones

your own you night

I don't believe that there is any particular book that influenced any 'career' I might have.

Edward P. Jones

any career believe book

Perhaps if I knew I would be stranded on an island with but one book, I would choose the Bible. For no religious reason whatsoever, but because of the varieties of stories, which might be useful as the days pass.

Edward P. Jones

choose island bible book

'Jane Eyre,' when I think of that book, it conjures up the best moments of college English courses. Literature is extraordinary, especially when you have a good professor.

Edward P. Jones

best good you book

I write a lot in my head. I've never been driven to write things down.

Edward P. Jones

head down never things

I'm not afraid of my own company. I was made to be at home.

Edward P. Jones

own company my-own home

The people I grew up around, almost all of them had been born and raised in the South. And, you know, they didn't always go to church, but they lived their lives as if God were watching everything they did.

Edward P. Jones

you church god people