Percival Everett Quotes

You should know I consider police shootings to be lynchings

When does the war end?” I asked. “Does it end? That’s the question. Who gets to say that it’s over? A war continues until the victor says it’s over.

I have dark brown skin, curly hair, a broad nose, some of my ancestors were slaves and I have been detained by pasty white policemen in New Hampshire, Arizona and Georgia and so the society in which I live tells me I am black; that is my race.

The interesting thing about irony for me is that real irony is far more sincere than earnestness. To accept the absurdity of a situation is to accept the humanness of it. Utter sincerity suggests a kind of belief that one knows all there is to know about a given circumstance. That is not to say that one should ever make light of serious and grave and important issues, but that open and genuine intellectual curiosity should never be a casualty in any situation. Irony is not always funny. Humor is not always ironic.

What’s your dog’s name?” “Oh, he ain’t got no name.” “Why’s that?” “I don’t like names,” the man said, looking down at his pet. “How do you call it?” Jim asked. “Call it?

I had never read a novel, though I understood the concept of fiction. It wasn't so unlike religion, or history, for that matter.

I had to hide my excitement about the discovery of books.

With my pencil, I wrote myself into being.

"You sound like a physicist," she said.
"There's no need to be insulting."

I suspected at that moment that I would not die, but it was unclear whether I would be pleased about that fact.

I'm wanted for being a runaway, kidnapping, theft and murder.'
'Are you guilty?' Holly asked.
'Does it matter?' I asked.

There might be some higher power, children, but it’s not their white God. However, the more you talk about God and Jesus and heaven and hell, the better they feel.” The children said together, “And the better they feel, the safer we are.

I hated the world that wouldn’t let me apply justice without the certain retaliation of injustice.

You know', I said, 'I have come to dislike museums.’ 'Why is that?’, she asked. 'It is where art comes to die.

Why are people so fucked up?” I asked
“Maybe you do need college, Poiter,” Everett said. “You want to know why people are so fucked up? Son, that’s about the only question I can answer with even a small measure of authority. It’s because they’re people. People, my friend, are worse than anybody.