Echoes of a Distant Summer (Tremain Family Saga #2)

by Guy Johnson

the death of vibrancy

These men without history, rootless men, moving like tumbleweeds across the landscape. The earth would not miss them.

He was embittered after her passing because she had died needlessly. Her appendicitis could have been easily treated. Nor did it make it more palatable to know that famous people like Bessie Smith and Robert Johnson had died in similar circumstances fifteen to twenty years earlier.

He did not want to live in a world where history dictated everything yet meant nothing.

male-bonding ceremony.

I love fucking and I haven’t yet met all the women I intend to fuck.”

Unhinged ass line

shooting is close to ejaculation!”

What a statement

“How do you expect to build emotional bridges if you can’t forgive those that love you? Plus, you’re not forgiving him for himself, but for yourself. You are letting go of the anger and the resentment.”

“The way I heard it, you ran away faster than everybody. Too bad it wasn’t an Olympic year, you might have gotten a medal, except they don’t give ’em for yellow streaks.”

Oh damn

In a very short while you will have outlived your usefulness.

“You’re a dead man; it’s just a question of when! But you’re a dead man!”

Foreshadowing?

You’s a distant relative, yo’ DuMont blood ain’t that thick.”

Ohhhhhhhh

if a boy don’t get the right trainin’, he just get older and bigger. He don’t ever turn into a man.”

Remember, bein’ tough ain’t about winning every fight; it’s about getting up off the floor with the same vinegar you had when you hit it.

education is the first major step in creating the foundations for brotherhood and in eliminating ignorance.

He was part of an eternal human flow, a fluid of countless faces.

Funneled through the vast sprinkler head of birth to different destinations, some to be stopped by objects in midflight, others to hit the wall, while still others evaporated into the very air that was breathed by all.

“Lifetimes have been spent in resolving issues smaller than these.”

“Your labeling me is characteristic of the type of thinking that hinders philosophical inquiry.”

“The woman with tremendous hocks, as you call them, has swallowed bigger tips than you’ll ever give her without a smile.”

Sir????

“Your grandfather is a hard man who grew up in hard times. He does not express affection well, but he is one of the best friends that a man can have. He will wade into a pack of wolves for you, if he takes you as his friend.”

the only things a man truly possessed were his courage and the spirit with which he employed it.

The old man contended that without courage, none of the other virtues could be accessed consistently. A man was supposed to stand up to fear. He didn’t have to like it, but fear should not deter him from practicing the virtues that were in his heart.

Attitude was a temporary thing: donned or doffed like a piece of clothing depending upon the weather. But as his grandfather had told him so many times, courage and spirit were what made a man continue to get off the floor with the same vinegar he had when he hit it, regardless of climate or circumstance.

But such are the vagaries of the human psyche.

When one is being teased out of love, it is easy to abide.

what it would have been like to have had someone to love him without reservation; to have had someone sincerely concerned about his welfare; someone with whom he could confide his deepest secrets; someone who would never judge him too harshly.

‘The measure of a man is what he feels about what he thinks and the measure of a woman is what she thinks about what she feels’?”

“Some scars are too deep for one ever to obtain the full range of emotion.

Was he truly King’s heir, or would someone else crawl out of the woodwork? The next few weeks would reveal all.

FORESHADOWING FOR ELROY

Naylor, Morrison, McMillan, Walker,”

“I don’t consider myself to be well read enough to give a knowledgeable answer to that question.”

“It seems to me that this is no ordinary first date. I feel something for you, Miss Carlson, that I have no right to feel. It compels me to want to see you again.

She had known right then that he was the one who was meant for her.

there’s only two reasons to have a man in your life: one, the dick is so good you want to give up TV; or two, he can give you expensive gifts and do something for you financially.”

everything of value takes work. And to have something of value, you must risk.”

“Girl, the only reason I don’t become a lesbian is that I don’t want to feel about women the way I feel about men. Plus, I’d have to have a partner who’d strap on one of those big plastic dildos. Because licking just don’t get it.”

Diane is completely unhinged

“Garbage is always political,”

The smart money said every time you allowed yourself to care for something or someone too much, you raised your level of vulnerability by a factor of ten.

Invulnerability was based on caring for nothing too greatly.

the best one could do was to limit the amount of ...

Nobility, like morality, was a myth.

“A man who ain’t got no loyalty is just a mercenary,

“If they were police, they would have shot somebody by now!”

LMAOOOOO

“Friendship and community spirit are the real treasures and riches of life,”

A man who fights just to protect his life and his family ain’t no killer.

“People are the same the world over, no matter what language they speak,”

Passing time done made the in-yo’-face racism go undercover. Who could see that all that was gon’ happen? But don’t get it twisted, the color problem ain’t that far undercover. It’s just a question of time. As soon as things get hard, it’ll be back out in the open.”

“It may rise up again, but it will be changed. The way things are going, whites will be the minority in this country soon.”

Only one thing gon’ be the same: racism. Just be a different color on top.”