Michele

“He cleared his throat, he gestured, and remained a black ghost, store after store, accumulating the standard humiliations, until he climbed the black iron steps to Aronowitz & Sons and the proprietor asked, “Can I help you, sir?” Can I help you as in Can I help you? As opposed to What are you doing here? Ray Carney, in his years, had a handle on the variations.”
― Colson Whitehead, Harlem Shuffle

“Stickups were chops - they cook fast and hot, you're in and out. A stakeout was ribs - fire down low, slow, taking your time.”
― Colson Whitehead, Harlem Shuffle

“Strivers grasped for something better-and crooks schemes about how to manipulate the present system. The world as it might be versus the world as it was. But perhaps Carney was being too stark. Plenty of crooks were strivers, and plenty of strivers bent the law.”
― Colson Whitehead, Harlem Shuffle

“There was pain and then there was pain. Different magnitudes you could stand or not stand. Wetting your beak and wetting your beak.”
― Colson Whitehead, Harlem Shuffle