Erasure

by Percival Everett

Also by Percival Everett Assumption I Am Not Sidney Poitier The Water Cure Wounded American Desert A History of the African-American People (Proposed) by Strom Thurmond, As Told to Percival Everett and James Kincaid Damned If I Do Erasure Grand Canyon, Inc. Glyph

Frenzy Watershed Big Picture The Body of Martin Aguilera God’s Country For Her Dark Skin Zulus The Weather and Women Treat Me Fair Cutting Lisa Walk Me to the Distance Suder The One That Got Away

All propositions are of equal value.

A metaphor cannot be paraphrased.

I wouldn’t use the cliché that I was the captain of a sinking ship, that implying some kind of authority, but rather I was a diesel mechanic on a steamship, an obstetrician in a monastery.

There are as many hammers as there are saws. A misplaced thumb knows no difference.

There isn’t anything so bad that seeing something worse won’t make better.”

“Monksie, we are all such vain creatures. The hard part is seeing myself, what I’ve become. I see for a couple of seconds and then I don’t know where I am. I wish I could tell you I’m in here looking out.