The Noble Hustle Quotes

“As it often did when I thought about chicken wings and entropy, my mind turned to Emerson. "Life is a journey, not a destination." Now that was one stone-cold motherfucker who was not afraid to deliver the truth: After the torments of the journey, you have been well-prepared for the agonies of the destination.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death

“Why do you watch TV shows — and keep watching them — if you don't like them?" Terence asked.

Simple: Some days, all you have is gazing upon horror, and the small comfort of being surprised that it is not yours.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death

“I'd never been much of an athlete, due to a physical condition I'd had since birth (unathleticism). Perhaps if there were a sport centered around lying on your couch in a neurotic stupor all day, I'd take an interest.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death

“Weeks passed, but my Word-A-Day Calendar was stuck on "motherfucker.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death

“We Anhedonians have adapted to long periods between good news. Our national animal is the hope camel. We have no national bird. All the birds are dead.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death

“Social media wasn't usually my thing, as it had the word "social" in it, but I'd taken to the platform after a personal tragedy. I had a cat, the cat died, and now what I used to say to my cat all day, I tweeted. It helped that 140 characters was roughly my preferred limit when it came to human interaction.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death

“One of my dinner companions invited me on a strip-club excursion. I demurred, spoiled by the erotic revues of Anhedonia, where the performers remain fully clothed but get emotionally naked, delivering monologues about their top-shelf disappointments, and times when they were almost happy. Hard to enjoy American-style strip clubs after that. Once you go bleak, you never go back.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death

“Spoiler: I didn't win the Main Event. You had suspicions, you say? For one thing, the subtitle of this book would be "The Amazing Life-Affirming Story of an Unremarkable Jerk Who Won the World Series of Poker!" instead of having the word "Death" in it. For another, do these sound like the words of a motherfucker who won a million goddamn dollars?”
― Colson Whitehead, The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death

“The mere fact of Vegas, its necessity, was an indictment of our normal lives. If we needed this place--to transform into a high roller or a sexy swinger, to be someone else, a winner for once--then certainly the world beyond the desert was a small and mealy place indeed.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death

“You are a soulless monster whose fright mask is incapable of capturing human expressions.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death

“Well, imagine you are alone in a room....Are you the best, most special person in the room right now? Yes. That's the gift of being alone.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death

“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, because in the end, whatever goes down, whatever you get up to, your triumphs and transgressions, nobody actually understands what it means except for you.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death

“There was one moment of intersection, when the topic of hate-watching came up. "Why do you watch TV shows--and keep watching them--if you don't like them?" Terrence asked.

Simple: Some days, all you have is gazing upon horror, and the small comfort of being surprised that it is not yours.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death

“I feel about my phone the way horror-movie ventriloquists feel about their dummies: It's smarter than me, better than me, and I will kill anyone who comes between us.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death

“I have a good poker face because I am half dead inside.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death

“Suck it, Entropy. We have an appointment, my old friend, but not today.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death

“What's wrong with Disneyland? It brings joy to millions and tutors children about the corporate, overbranded world they've been born into.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death

“Well, imagine you are alone in a room. The lights are down low, you’ve got some scented candles going. Soothing New Age tunes, nothing too druid-chanty, seep out of the hi-fi to gently massage your cerebral cortex. Feel good? Are you the best, most special person in the room right now? Yes. That’s the gift of being alone.

Then a bozo in a CAT Diesel Power cap barges in. What’s the chance that you are the best, most special person in the room now? Fifty-fifty. If you both were dealt two cards, those would be your odds of holding the winning hand.

Now imagine ten people are in the room. It’s cramped. You’re elbow to elbow, aerosolized dandruff floats in the air, and the candle’s lavender scent is complicated by BO tones, with a tuna sandwich finish. What are the chances you’re the best, most special person in the room? If you were handed cards, you might expect to be crowned one time out of ten.

People, as ever, are the problem. The more people there are, the tougher you have it. Just by sitting next to you, they fuck you up, as if life were nothing more than a bus ride to hell (which it is). But what if you moved to another seat? Changed position? Your seat is everything. It can give you room to relax, to contemplate your next move. Or it might instigate your unraveling.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death

“Here's a tip for new parents: Start lowering those expectations early, it's going to pay off later.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death

“Our government disdains a risk-reward game that millions of Americans play,” Matt wrote, “then bails out Wall Street sharks who bet unfathomable sums. I can only conclude that this contradictory stance has little to do with the skills required for each pursuit. No, for some reason, lawmakers just don’t like poker.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death

“Was it counterintuitive to apply lessons from a women's self-defense book to the World Series of Poker? Yes. But if modernity has taught us anything, it's that you don't fuck with Oprah.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death

“They don't give gold bracelets for regrets.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death

“Pick your fights like you pick your nose: with complete awareness of where you are.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death

“Sanctimony and self-regard are as American as smallpox blankets and supersize meals.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death

“To build a House of Jerky is to triumph against the odds, to construct a nitrate-filled monument to possibility and individual perseverance. Dexter Choi was an outlaw. He faced down fate and flopped a full house.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death

“Memory is the past with volume control.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death

“I didn't have illusions about being one of the November Nine. We live in an age in which sitcoms outnumber miracles, and perhaps that is what we deserve.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death

“I wrote two five-page short stories, two five-page epics, to audition for my college's creative writing workshops, and was turned down both times. I was crushed, but in retrospect it was perfect training for being a writer. You can keep ‘write what you know’—for a true apprenticeship, internalize the world’s indifference and accept rejection and failure into your very soul.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death

“After a few hands, I realized he was talking about me. The dismissive gesture in my direction tipped me off. I hadn't been glared at with such hate by two people since couples therapy.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death

“Poker eminence Doyle Brunson called Hold'em “the Cadillac of poker,” and I was only qualified to steer a Segway. In one of the fiction-writing manuals, it says that there are only two stories: a hero goes on a journey, and a stranger comes to town. I don't know. This being life, and not literature, we'll have to make do with this: A middle-aged man, already bowing and half broken under his psychic burdens, decides to take on the stress of being one of the most unqualified players in the history of the Big Game. A hapless loser goes on a journey, a strange man comes to gamble.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death