184 Quotes by Victor LaValle

Josephine didn’t mean to be so dismissive, but it came surprisingly easily. Then, almost as quickly, she questioned many of the judgments she’d made in her life. Mental patients can’t be intelligent, junkies can’t be articulate, and so on. But really, honestly, how many did she actually know?

You had to be rich to risk looking broke. The.

Imagine slaying trolls and then being killed by a hit-and-run driver. “We have to wait on the Q11,” Apollo said.

Walking through Harlem first thing in the morning was like being a single drop of blood inside an enormous body that was waking up. Brick and mortar, elevated train tracks, and miles of underground pipe, this city lived; day and night it thrived.

Because to watch would be to understand the play isn’t being staged for us.

A good hustler isn’t curious. A good hustler only wants his pay.

This was the first time in his life he ever played well. “Don’t you mind people grinning in your face,” Tommy sang. “Don’t mind people grinning in your face.” Few on the platform gave him their attention, another guitar man in Harlem being as unremarkable as the arc lights along the sidewalks. “I said bear this in mind, a true friend is hard to find. Don’t you mind people grinning in your face.

But reconciliation never came easy. Not with the things that mattered.

Every human being is a series of stories; it’s nice when someone wants to hear a new one.