Friday Black Quotes

“People say “sell your soul” like it’s easy. But your soul is yours and it’s not for sale. Even if you try, it’ll still be there, waiting for you to remember it.”
― Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday Black: NYT Bestselling Literary Satire – Urgent African American Stories About Systemic Racism

“Even the apocalypse isn't the end. That, you could only know when you're standing before a light so bright it obliterates you. And if you are alone, posed like a dancer, when it comes, you feel silly and scared. And if you are with your family, or anyone at all, when it comes, you feel silly and scared, but at least not alone.”
― Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday Black

“Emmanuel started learning the basics of his Blackness before he knew how to do long division: smiling when angry, whispering when he wanted to yell.”
― Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday Black

“I had become a devotee to a religion of my own creation. Its most integral ritual was maintaining a precise calm especially when angry, when hurt, when terrified.”
― Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday Black

“My client, Mister George Dunn, believed he was in danger. And you know what, if you believe something, anything, then that’s what matters most. Believing. In America we have the freedom to believe. America, our beautiful sovereign state. Don’t kill that here today.”
― Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday Black: NYT Bestselling Literary Satire – Urgent African American Stories About Systemic Racism

“I’m trying to be nice because I’m transcending, but I really don’t fuck with you. Get it?”
― Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday Black: NYT Bestselling Literary Satire – Urgent African American Stories About Systemic Racism

“Buy One Get One stops for no one.”
― Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday Black

“The woman glanced toward Emanuel as he sat. She smiled faintly. Her look of general disinterest made his heart sing. He turned his hat forward and felt his Blackness ease back to a still very serious 7.6.”
― Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday Black

“even though I’m being true, they’d say I was being emotional and it was clouding my truth.”
― Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday Black: NYT Bestselling Literary Satire – Urgent African American Stories About Systemic Racism

“She’ll say, 'Gracias, gracias,' a few more times and tap my shoulder in parting, and I’ll say, 'De nada, de nada,' which will be a lie, because she is everything.”
― Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday Black

“I locate: your life is in the hands of someone who doesn't even know you and thinks you don't deserve it.”
― Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday Black

“Adulthood is paying the meter on time, I thought.”
― Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday Black: NYT Bestselling Literary Satire – Urgent African American Stories About Systemic Racism

“In that moment, with his final thoughts, his last feelings as a member of the world, Emmanuel felt his Blackness slide and plummet to an absolute nothing point nothing.”
― Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday Black: NYT Bestselling Literary Satire – Urgent African American Stories About Systemic Racism

“You mutilated five children.” “I protected my children.”
― Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday Black: NYT Bestselling Literary Satire – Urgent African American Stories About Systemic Racism

“I’d learned that many of the things I loved, the comforts that made me feel good about myself, could disappear very slowly and also suddenly.”
― Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday Black: NYT Bestselling Literary Satire – Urgent African American Stories About Systemic Racism

“Working here, I've learned that married men use their wives as mirrors.”
― Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday Black

“I walked toward the entrance thinking, Remember this: the first time you drove a parent to a hospital.”
― Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday Black: NYT Bestselling Literary Satire – Urgent African American Stories About Systemic Racism

“L’altr’anno, il morbo del Venerdì Nero ha fatto 129 vittime. «Il Black Friday è un caso a parte: al centro della nostra politica aziendale restano la cura per il cliente e la coesione interpersonale», ha dichiarato la direzione del centro commerciale in una circolare a tutti i dipendenti. Come se la cura per le persone fosse qualcosa che si può accendere e spegnere a piacimento.”
― Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday Black

“Fin dalla prima volta, da quando sono stato morso, so parlare il Black Friday. O quantomeno lo capisco. Non lo parlo fluentemente, ma lo mastico. Ho dentro qualcosa di loro. Sento le persone, le taglie, il modello, la marca e il motivo. Anche se quelli non fanno altro che schiumare dalla bocca. Usando l’asta aggancio uno SleekPack della PoleFace® azzurro taglia M appeso a una rastrelliera in alto sulla parete. «Grazie», grugnisce l’uomo quando gli tiro in faccia il giaccone.”
― Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday Black

“dal momento che i bambini se ne stavano fondamentalmente a ciondolare lì davanti e non erano dentro la biblioteca a leggere come ci si può aspettare dai membri produttivi della società, era ragionevole che Dunn si fosse sentito minacciato da quei cinque giovani neri ed era dunque nel pieno dei suoi diritti quando aveva protetto sé stesso, i dvd presi in prestito dalla biblioteca e i suoi figli andando”
― Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday Black

“Quella mattina, come tutte le mattine, la prima decisione che prese riguardava la sua Nerezza. Aveva la pelle di un marrone scuro e uniforme. In pubblico, quando la gente poteva effettivamente vederlo, gli era impossibile anche solo avvicinarsi a un livello di Nerezza basso come 1,5. Se aveva la cravatta, le scarpe eleganti e un sorriso perenne in faccia, impostava la voce sul tono adatto agli ambienti chiusi e teneva le mani ferme e calme lungo i fianchi, poteva scendere al massimo a 4,0.”
― Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday Black

“Fece un respiro profondo e regolò la Nerezza della voce abbassandola a 1,5 su una scala da 1 a 10. «Oh, salve, buongiorno, come va?”
― Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday Black

“You have to grab for happiness in places like this because there isn't enough to go around for everybody.”
― Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday Black

“That morning, like every morning, the first decision he made regarded his Blackness. His skin was a deep, constant brown. In public, when people could actually see him, it was impossible to get his Blackness down to anywhere near a 1.5. If he wore a tie, wing-tipped shoes, smiled constantly, used his indoor voice, and kept his hands strapped and calm at his sides, he could get his Blackness as low as 4.0.”
― Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday Black

“He zips it, unzips it, shrugs his shoulders once, twice. Then he looks at his wife. Working here, I've learned that married men use their wives as mirrors.”
― Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday Black

“The apocalypse wanes naught to Colgate.”
― Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday Black: NYT Bestselling Literary Satire – Urgent African American Stories About Systemic Racism

“Nothing is more boring than a happy ending.”
― Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday Black

“We're like old friends now. The kind that know the worst about each other and don't always speak but check in enough and decorate the internet with pictures of each other's kids.”
― Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday Black

“She once told the entire class that her dog, one of those little living-accessory dogs that spends most of its life in a pleather handbag, hung itself by slipping through the beams of her deck after securing the other end of the leash beneath one of the patio chairs. She said it was proof that even animals could think and feel. I think she wanted us to become vegetarians.”
― Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday Black

“We’re in How-It-Was class.”
― Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday Black