I don't want to own something that you can't take into your apartment at night. Edward P. Jones More Quotes by Edward P. Jones More Quotes From Edward P. Jones It just so happens that I was born and raised in Washington. Had I been born in Chicago or San Antonio, the streets and places would have figured into whatever I wrote. Just so happens that it's Washington, D.C. Edward P. Jones i-was-born whatever streets born In the summer of 1964, my sister and I went to South Ballston, Virginia, to stay with my aunt and her kids. They passed the civil rights bill that summer; my cousins were so happy because now they could swim in the pool. Edward P. Jones stay pool sister happy From my apartment in Arlington, I could see Washington. It was always nice to be near home. Edward P. Jones see always nice home I've never been comfortable with the idea of using family and friends in stories. Which is why it takes me longer than something else. Because you make them up out of nothing. Doing that is harder. Edward P. Jones me you friends family People seem to have trouble with the imagination. They can't believe that you can just pull things out of your brain like that. Edward P. Jones you imagination brain people I never like to put myself in the stories; in 'Lost in the City,' there are fourteen stories, and there's only one, 'The First Day,' about a little girl going to school, that has anything to do with me. Edward P. Jones day myself me girl My mother worked in the white world, but I lived almost exclusively in a black world. I don't think I had ever seen a white teacher until I got to high school. Edward P. Jones black mother teacher world There are those who write because they believe they have something so marvelous that it will make them famous and wealthy, a lauded commodity who will be invited to a lifetime of cocktail parties. Edward P. Jones cocktail something will believe Something happened during the 1980s - perhaps the political climate of that time - that caused me to ask how a people would become part of a system that oppresses their own people. Edward P. Jones me political time people You don't go to the library and walk along and pick out a topic. You are riding the bus, or shopping at Safeway, and all of a sudden the idea comes to you. Edward P. Jones walk you library shopping
