16+ Kiese Laymon Quotes On Religion, Education And Revision

Kiese Laymon is an American writer, essayist, and professor from Jackson, Mississippi. He is the author of the memoir Heavy: An American Memoir and the novel Long Division. Laymon's writing often focuses on race, class, and gender in the American South. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Kiese Laymon on love, religion, leadership.

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. — 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. — Kiese Laymon

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

I'm not good enough as a person and definitely not good enough as a writer. — 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. — Kiese Laymon

I'm an obsessive writer who needs and loves revision. Writing helps me learn and helps me teach. — Kiese Laymon

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. — Kiese Laymon

Black is not a vice. Nor is segregation a virtue. — 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. — Kiese Laymon

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." — Kiese Laymon

I'm a black writer from Mississippi. That's what I most consider myself. — 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. — 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. — Kiese Laymon

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

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

Life Lessons by Kiese Laymon

1. Kiese Laymon teaches us to be honest and vulnerable in our writing, to confront our own truth and the truth of our society.
2. He also encourages us to challenge our assumptions and to think critically about the world around us.
3. Finally, he reminds us to be kind to ourselves and to others, and to strive for justice and equity in our lives.