Clockers Quotes

“almost nobody made it out of the game in one piece, and almost everybody thought they would be the exception.”
― Richard Price, Clockers

“Strike experienced a moment of pure clarity: he would never make it out of here, would never rise above his current position as Rodney’s lieutenant, because all the intelligence and prudence and vision came to nothing if it wasn’t tempered and supported by a certain blindness, an oblivious animal will that Rodney had, that he, Strike, did not have.
Rodney would survive all this not because of his guts or his brains, but because he understood that there was no real life out here on the street, no real lives other than his own, and that what really mattered was coming first in all things, in all ways and at all costs.”
― Richard Price, Clockers

“the only place a man can be truly handicapped is in his mind, and that a man who can conquer his own mind has got the world at his feet.”
― Richard Price, Clockers

“On the nights they went to bed at the same time, Rocco would lie there and watch her go to the closet, watch her choose either silky slips or mannish shirts, like running up sex flags from across the room.”
― Richard Price, Clockers

“Strike said "Huh" again, thinking about betrayal, about how everything and everybody were just so much smoke.”
― Richard Price, Clockers

“If God hates your guts, he grants you your deepest wish’?”
― Richard Price, Clockers

“everybody was full of shit in this game. The cops bullshitted each other, the dealers bullshitted each other, the cops bullshitted the dealers, the dealers bullshitted the cops, the cops took bribes, the dealers ratted each other out. Nobody knew for sure which side anybody was on; no one really knew how much or how little money anybody else was making. Everything was smoke.”
― Richard Price, Clockers

“Rocco was gripped with the panic he often experienced around her, around himself. He seemed to be both here now and simultaneously five years in the future looking back at this moment, at the loss of this moment. He was always sliding past the nowness of being with her, throwing himself at her like a cranked-up insincere clown for an exhausting fifteen minutes a day or getting cozy with booze in order to achieve the proper mood, and from the time she was born he had felt he was on his deathbed, remembering with regret how skittish and slippery his time with her had been. Had been, as if she were a hard thirty-seven and divorced instead of a two-year old baby, as if he were eighty-six and senile instead of forty-three and slightly overweight.”
― Richard Price, Clockers

“The County Jail looked like a tall, forbidding elementary school. Seven stories of dirty brown brick, one hundred years old and now operating at 330 percent of capacity.”
― Richard Price, Clockers

“Saturday was a sweet and sunny day, the kind that made people think about getting it together once and for all -- health, kids, jobs, personal appearance, doing things right this time.”
― Richard Price, Clockers

“When the dick stands up, the brains get buried in the ground?”
― Richard Price, Clockers

“Strike softening a little as he considered that possibility, believing that you can’t criticize someone’s heart for the failings of their body.”
― Richard Price, Clockers

“I mean, I don’t know anybody who’s proud of themselves. Nobody. You know, it’s like a race, and sometimes people don’t have the conditioning. You know what I’m saying?”
― Richard Price, Clockers

“The snacks, the school chairs and the glazed tile walls made the room seem to Rocco like recess time in hell.”
― Richard Price, Clockers

“He looked as if he had never uttered a full sentence of conversation in his life.”
― Richard Price, Clockers

“I believe in fear. I believe in punishment. I believe in revenge.”
― Richard Price, Clockers

“he understood that there was no real life out here on the street, no real lives other than his own, and that what really mattered was coming first in all things, in all ways and at all costs.”
― Richard Price, Clockers

“Yeah, but I ain’t worried about it,” Rodney said,”
― Richard Price, Clockers

“you saw him, said hello, how’s tricks . . .”
― Richard Price, Clockers

“Yeah, uh-huh.” “OK. Were you coming from a store or something when you saw him?” “Naw, I was like, coming from the benches.” “And where was he?”
― Richard Price, Clockers

“Naw, I was like, coming from the benches.”
― Richard Price, Clockers

“cause you knew too much and you was too scared to be trusted.”
― Richard Price, Clockers

“York. Self-conscious about his own corrupted dimensions, he pushed himself away from the table and trotted across the traffic to the store. He almost sprained his wrist pushing on the locked door, then jumped a little at the delayed buzz of electronic permission. To Bind an Egg was about the size of”
― Richard Price, Clockers

“A minute later the rear door opened and”
― Richard Price, Clockers

“Rocco watched Strike limp into the human slipstream of Eighth Avenue, watched him negotiate his way through lowlifes and taxpayers until he disappeared inside the terminal doors without a backward glance.”
― Richard Price, Clockers

“Rocco drove up the West Side until they reached the Port Authority Bus Terminal.”
― Richard Price, Clockers

“because, man, if this city ain't Caleb's mountain, I don't know what is, and those giants out there are just stomping people into the ground.”
― Richard Price, Clockers

“as a reminder to himself that at forty-three you don't make plans to dabble in different lives. At forty-three, what you are, what you know, is about as far as you're going to go in this life;”
― Richard Price, Clockers

“It was time to chuck this life, with its Jo-Jos and Rodneys, its bloody burning children and walking-dead parents, just kick dirt over the whole show, like a cat burying its shit.”
― Richard Price, Clockers

“...Rocco loving them both so much that he knew he'd never tell a soul about this moment, just take it to bed with him every night for years, like a miser's secret stash of gold.”
― Richard Price, Clockers