Percival Everett Quotes

It’s almost noon, Trig,” I said. “We’ve nearly run out of morning. A sad thought, morning being my favorite part of the day. My least favorite part of the day is from 2:34 to 4:56 in the afternoon.

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.

"When you step on the gas, do it gently, softly, slowly. Okay? All right, let's try it again. Gently. Treat it like you would a woman."
"I would never step on a woman."

I was, in life, to be a gambler, a risk taker, a swashbuckler, a knight. I accepted, then and there, my place in this world. I was a fighter of windmills. I was a chaser of whales.

I considered the northern white stance against slavery. How much of the desire to end the institution was fueled by a need to quell and subdue white guilt and pain? Was it just too much to watch? Did it offend Christian sensibilities to live in a society that allowed that practice? I knew that whatever the cause of their war, freeing slaves was an incidental premise and would be an incidental result.

"Should we save them, Jim?"
The boy was so innocent.
"Huck, I reckon if'n we save 'em, dey gonna turn me in. What you think?"
The boy studied on that for a spell. "I reckon you're right. But what will them folks do to them?"
"I don't know, Huck. Maybe dey jest pay a fine. Maybe dey get tarred and feathered. I don't know."
"That seems right awful."
"I s'pose it do. But dey was stealin' from dem folk. Tellin' lies lak dey was. He weren't neber no pirate."
"Yes, but them people liked it, Jim. Did you see their faces? They had to know them was lies, but they wanted to believe. What do you make of that?"
"Folks be funny lak dat. Dey takes the lies dey want and throws away the truths dat scares 'em."
The river put its full pull on us and we watched the men grow smaller.
"I reckon I do that, too," the boy said.
"What say?"
"I kin see how much you miss yer family and yet I don't think about it. I forget that you feel things jest like I feel. I know you love them."
"Thank you, Huck."

If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not learning.

White folks expect us to sound a certain way and it can only help if we don’t disappoint them,” I said. “The only ones who suffer when they are made to feel inferior is us. Perhaps I should say ‘when they don’t feel superior.’ So, let’s pause to review some of the basics.” “Don’t make eye contact,” a boy said. “Right, Virgil.” “Never speak first,” a girl said. “That’s correct, February,” I said.

I thought about tearing out his songs and burning them, but they would still exist. Those crackers would still sing them. Better to know they exist. Don't you think?

Just keep living,” I said. “Just remember, once they see you, or see me in you, you’ve been seen. I know you don’t understand. But you will one day.

The worst part was that the judge told the grand jury that it was an act of a multitude and so they couldn’t recommend any indictments. So, if enough people do it, it’s not a crime.

Why are you still a priest?” Eigen asked, not letting the subject go.
“My dear girl,” Karras said. “I remain a goddamn cleric because in this world one needs something to hide behind. I have chosen this fucking collar. You have chosen mathematics.

And though I missed my lover, I was not sad. I was satisfied. I was different.

Was it evil to kill evil? The truth was that I didn't care. It was this apathy that left me wondering about myself - not wondering why I didn't feel anything or whether I was incapable of feeling, but wondering what else I was capable of doing. It was not an altogether bad feeling.

But I will not let this condition define me. I will not let myself, my mind, drown in fear and outrage. I will be outraged as a matter of course. But my interest is in how these marks that I am scratching on this page can mean anything at all. If they can have meaning, then life can have meaning, then I can have meaning.