Quotes from Percival Everett

I really loved your mother. I was sad when she didn't come back, but, like I said, I understood and still think it was for the best. For her at least. It really fucked you up. Not so badly as I might have guessed, though. I mean, you've grown up to be successful and well adjusted and, of course, unhappy, the way a man is supposed to feel in this world. Just pulling your leg, son.

Money, Mississippi, looks exactly like it sounds. Shall I stop him?

And they used to have cross burnin's a lot more and family picnics and softball games and all such,' said Donald. 'I remember eatin' cake next to that glowing cross. I loved my mama's cake.' 'Yeah,' several voiced their agreement. 'We don't do nothin' now,' a man complained. 'I don't even know where my hood is. I don't even own a rope.

Christ, man, it's 1871, ain't you people ever gonna forget about that slavery stuff?

Read. Always read. No one can take that away from you.

Why will I bury you? So that one day I might disturb your grave.

It's okay to love something bigger than yourself without fearing it. Anything worth loving is bigger than we are anyway.

Everybody talks about genocides around the world, but when the killing is slow and spread over a hundred years, no one notices. Where there are no mass graves, no one notices. American outrage is always for show. It has a shelf life.

It's a bitch, ain't it? The things we assume.

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.

I don't think meaning exists without form, and certainly form does not exist without meaning. Meaning and story come first. Story is the most important part of fiction. Without it, what's the point? If all you care about is form, become a critic.

You should know I consider police shootings to be lynchings

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.

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

I had never heard such bullshit in my life. I opened my mouth and said, "I have never heard such bullshit in my life.

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.

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

The lie felt good because I had taken control of the narrative around me. The

She stared at the television. "Why is it that after all the bullets have bounced off Superman's chest, he then ducks when the villain throws the empty gun at him?

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.

He resisted the urge to let satire ring through his voice.

And like my BIPDIP husband, it's never been out of the state, not even to Boston." "BIPDIP?" "Born in Providence, died in Providence. We actually honeymooned in Newport. I hate him so much.

Now here he was, tailored iron-gray suit, thin maroon tie, a maroon handkerchief peeking out from his breast pocket. His oxblood wing tips gleamed. He looked like a supervillain or, worse, an upper-crust English spy, an openly promiscuous and functionally alcoholic heterosexual with an on-and-off-again messiah complex. It was the shoes, the way they were tied.

It had a rear bumper sticker that read Legalize Recreational Plutonium.