Ray Celestin > Quotes

“and it was this that made her frown, that the only time a Negro was allowed to be treated with grandeur was when he or she wasn't even alive to appreciate it.”
― Ray Celestin, The Axeman's Jazz

“...because a home wasn’t just somewhere you lived, it was somewhere you were happy to die.”
― Ray Celestin, The Axeman's Jazz

“that the best solutions to any mystery were the simplest ones, because simplicity was the source of nature's elegance, and mysteries were nothing more than nature unilluminated.”
― Ray Celestin, The Axeman's Jazz

“Ida usually felt uncomfortable in the company of those born into great wealth; it had been her experience that behind the gentility there always lurked a contempt, a sense of entitlement, a confident belief that the world had been especially reserved for them.”
― Ray Celestin, Dead Man's Blues

“... Why have they been taught to look at things that way? Because these same countries we say are populated by savages are the same countries we're subjugating. If we admitted they're human beings just like us, then it would make us the invading barbarians.”
― Ray Celestin, Palace of Shadows

“We paint others as monsters to stop ourselves from being the monsters.”
― Ray Celestin, Palace of Shadows

“I never thought of time as moving forward, I always thought of it as falling into the past, each moment shed as soon as it's born, flung back like spray from a boat, sparks from a fire.”
― Ray Celestin, Palace of Shadows