A Rage in Harlem Quotes

“She held him at arms’ length, looked at the pipe still gripped in his hand, then looked at his face and read him like a book. She ran the tip of her red tongue slowly across her full cushiony, sensuous lips, making them wet-red and looked him straight in the eyes with her own glassy, speckled bedroom eyes.

The man drowned.

When he came up, he stared back, passion cocked, his whole black being on a live-wire edge. Ready! Solid ready to cut throats, crack skulls, dodge police, steal hearses, drink muddy water, live in a hollow log, and take any rape-fiend chance to be once more in the arms of his high-yellow heart.”
― Chester Himes, A Rage in Harlem

“It was the code of Harlem for one brother to help another lie to white cops.”
― Chester Himes, A Rage in Harlem

“Colored folks in Harlem didn't want to get caught by the police whether they had done anything or not.”
― Chester Himes, A Rage in Harlem

“He jangled his coin box and murmured in his husky, prayerful voice, “Give to the Lord. Give to the poor.” Whenever anyone looked at him suspiciously he quoted from Revelation, “ ‘That ye may eat the flesh of kings.’ ” “If that’s what you’re goin’ to buy with the money, Sister, here’s a half a dollar,”
― Chester Himes, A Rage in Harlem

“My own brother,” he gasped. “Here us is, got the same mama and papa. Look just alike. And there you is, ain’t got hep yet that you been beat. You has been swindled, man. You has been taken by The Blow. They take you for your money and they blow. You catch on? Changing tens into hundreds. What happened to your brains? You been drinking embalming fluid?”
― Chester Himes, A Rage in Harlem

“Jealous man can’t gamble, scared man can’t win,” the stick man crooned.”
― Chester Himes, A Rage in Harlem