The World Doesn't Require You Quotes

“Each week, I volunteered at K.I.D.S. Community Center in the McCoy neighborhood on the Southside. I forget what the letters stood for, but it could have been Khaotic, Ineffective, and Detrimental Supervision.”
― Rion Amilcar Scott, Insurrections

“Have you even fucked her yet? Been with her how long and you ain’t even hit that? You must be gay, man. You the only one that ain’t hit it. He a virgin, that’s why he be throwing rocks at people. Man, that don’t even make no sense, Casey said. It’s from the Bible, Kwayku replied. He who is without sin can cast the first stone.”
― Rion Amilcar Scott, Insurrections

“The knock, knock joke, much like the Negro spiritual, began as a means of clandestine communication, a way for the enslaved to pass information to each other beneath the radar of hostile whites. —Hiram Skylark Rollicks, Signifyin’ Revolt: Black Rebellion in the Antebellum South”
― Rion Amilcar Scott, The World Doesn't Require You

“They don’t have what you have, Christine. You know, that thing—and here I grabbed her hand, threaded her slender brown fingers with my own, brushed my fingertips along her red polished nails—where you close your eyes and touch my forehead and make my pain lift from me and you fly it away into the sky? You think when I do that the pain just flies off to the sky? That’s pretty cute, Reg.”
― Rion Amilcar Scott, The World Doesn't Require You

“It’s never the tyrant, not really. It’s always those who follow the tyrant. It’s they who are the true fist of tyranny. It’s they who make this life intolerable.”
― Rion Amilcar Scott, The World Doesn't Require You

“True artists, if they must destroy something, they destroy themselves.”
― Rion Amilcar Scott, The World Doesn't Require You

“David didn't mind sin, but he knew he had to pretend to hate sin if he ever wanted to engage in some.”
― Rion Amilcar Scott, The World Doesn't Require You

“Tyrone's entrance pissed me off more than a little, but his cocky half smile always defused things a bit. It said, Relax, It's all a bunch of bullshit, but it's not; except when it said, It's all serious, but it's really just a bunch of bullshit.”
― Rion Amilcar Scott, The World Doesn't Require You

“My only need: to stand as I did, not in perfection, nor in mastery, nor even in competence, but in constant work and growth.”
― Rion Amilcar Scott, The World Doesn't Require You

“How we diminished her and in turn ourselves. Turned parts of her body into heavy burdens to carry. Watching. Tittering (we no longer laughed, from then on it was tittering). Commenting. Losing our composure. Falling in love, developing obsessions, and growing resentful when our shallow affections were ignored.”
― Rion Amilcar Scott, Insurrections: Stories

“I put my hand on a bishop, my would be assassin, and thought of my father's heights when he won, how he galloped around. The depths of his despair at losing, I expected, would be equal to the peaks. He'd mope about, his face fallen and miserable, his posture stooped as if his back ached. I took my hand from the piece and leaned back in deliberation.”
― Rion Amilcar Scott, Insurrections: Stories

“Walter noticed the blue Cookie Monster head resting on the floor, From some angles, the smiling open mouth looked like an expression of abashed joy, from others it resembled horror.”
― Rion Amilcar Scott, Insurrections: Stories

“I'm sorry. It feels like the moment calls for some humor. You're ranting and dressed like Elmo.

The Cookie Monster.

Whatever, Rashid”
― Rion Amilcar Scott, Insurrections: Stories

“If vanity were a religion, he’d be a fundamentalist.”
― Rion Amilcar Scott, Insurrections

“When I started at Freedman’s, during orientation, a speaker who was an alumna and board member talked of sitting in economics class next to a shy young man with a thick West African accent. They struck up a friendship, she said, pausing to wink and nod, which I took as an insinuation of a more intimate relationship. The woman ended the story with his name, and I recognized it as the name of the warlord-turned-dictator-for-life of a small African republic. We were supposed to be impressed by the prominence of our alums, and at the same time we were encouraged to wonder what sort of world-shaker sat beside us. One day the dictator will be overthrown and executed or tried in The Hague for crimes against humanity.”
― Rion Amilcar Scott, Insurrections

“The Hottentot Venus was well known in her time and even after. In the 1939 cinematic version of The Wizard of Oz, Bert Lahr as the Cowardly Lion asks in song, “What makes the Hottentot so hot?” He answers his own question with the word courage. The correct answer, though it is not said in the film, would most logically be: her derrière. Or perhaps Wizard of Oz songwriters Yip Harburg and Harold Arlen meant that it took a certain measure of courage to live through such degradation.”
― Rion Amilcar Scott, Insurrections

“White Jesus’s arms were long, his muscles defined. He looked sad, though. He had never had sex, like me. Never masturbated to relieve the tension, because that was a sin and he was sinless. Never watched naked women writhe about on Cinemax or whatever the ancient equivalent of that was. Just what did he discuss with those whores? With the one he loved but never fucked? What did he do with all that yearning?”
― Rion Amilcar Scott, Insurrections

“I tried to imagine what Jesus had said to woo that young slut, the first nun.”
― Rion Amilcar Scott, Insurrections

“I wondered why Jesus would care if we sang songs in his honor. Why it mattered that we dropped to our knees like the naked women in the Cinemax movies I stayed up on weekends to watch.”
― Rion Amilcar Scott, Insurrections

“We called him Mr. Cold. A name, I think, Zeke made up. Anyway, Zeke was the first one I heard say it during third-period art one day, and my laughter turned from tittering to inconsolable, if laughter can be called inconsolable. Mr. Coles had a young, elfin face with tidily groomed hair on his cheeks and chin, none on his upper lip. He was handsome. Impossibly, even freakishly, handsome—strong cheekbones and a smooth dark complexion—a fact I had to reluctantly admit and one that most of the girls never let anyone forget. Hair all black while most of his peers sported grays and bad dye jobs. And Mr. Coles always smiled, even when angry and trying to be stern, especially when angry and trying to be stern. All of this is why we treated him poorly and why he overcompensated, first attempting to come across as a pal, a trustworthy big brother, and when that failed turning into a hard-ass for a time, though he was a phony hard-ass, one we could see clear through. Rarely, if ever, did we tremble in fear at his silly yelling and stiff pointing finger. Marshall, Mr. Coles called to me as I choked on laughter after he grew upset from Zeke’s taunting. Marshall, it’s funny, but that’s enough. This just caused us to laugh more. The warmest man in the school, Mr. Cold, then sent Ezekiel into the hallway as his mentor, Mr. Drayton, probably advised him to do. Damn, that’s cold-blooded, Mr. Cold, a proud and smiling Zeke said on his way out to another rise in laughter. The next time we saw Mr. Coles, he was stiff and stern. Even his movements changed to reflect the new him.”
― Rion Amilcar Scott, Insurrections

“I put it in my basement in a briefcase where I kept things I wanted no one to find. After a while I forgot the code and couldn’t even get back into the briefcase if I wanted to.”
― Rion Amilcar Scott, Insurrections

“I’ve never even smoked a joint before. Not even in college? Nope. What the hell have you been doing with your life, cousin?”
― Rion Amilcar Scott, Insurrections

“Now hold on, little girl, my father said. Chess is like real life. The white pieces go first so they got an advantage over the black pieces.”
― Rion Amilcar Scott, Insurrections

“Peacefulness, she realized, was synonymous with vulnerability.”
― Rion Amilcar Scott, Insurrections

“They both wore flat, creased faces that looked like abused rubbery masks.”
― Rion Amilcar Scott, Insurrections

“God, Rashid, that’s quite something, he said. I’m not sure—You young people. There are going to be rocks in your way and rocks on your backs. You’re a man, you can’t approach this like a baby would. It won’t get any easier, Rashid. Not a lick easier. It’s gonna be like this forever. Shit, it’s going to get harder. Forever, huh? I was going to name Luce forever, or rather, Samad, one of the ninety-nine names of Allah—Al-Samad, the eternal. But then I started to think about eternity, what a curse if you’re not God, right? My man God doesn’t have holy rent and holy bills to pay. Eternity means someone always digging into your pocket, forever being distracted from your deepest desires, spending all your time doing something you don’t want to do in order to pay a petty light bill. So in that hospital room while Ricca was screaming and pushing Luce out, I changed my mind about wanting my son to be eternal. His little head looked sort of like a beam of light so I dropped my college Arabic for my high school Spanish. La Luz, the light. But light, it’s beautiful and all, but it generates heat: heat burns. That’s what this family shit does, it burns you. Sets you on fire. Burns you to a fucking crisp. All my sense is burned from me. Everything. I’m gutted like a burnt-out building. I’m burned. I can’t stand. One day I’m gonna topple over, a pile of fucking burnt ash that’ll burn forever. And that, Rashid, is the good news. The sun burns and burns and burns and one day it’ll burn out. Massive explosion, taking everything with it, kid. But while it burns, look how much flourishes. Go back to your family, Rashid. Make the day special for Luce. Let Ricca scream at you. You deserve it. And then tomorrow, continue to burn, it’s all you can do.”
― Rion Amilcar Scott, Insurrections

“I’m not sure—You young people. There are going to be rocks in your way and rocks on your backs. You’re a man, you can’t approach this like a baby would. It won’t get any easier, Rashid. Not a lick easier. It’s gonna be like this forever. Shit, it’s going to get harder. Forever, huh? I was going to name Luce forever, or rather, Samad, one of the ninety-nine names of Allah—Al-Samad, the eternal. But then I started to think about eternity, what a curse if you’re not God, right? My man God doesn’t have holy rent and holy bills to pay. Eternity means someone always digging into your pocket, forever being distracted from your deepest desires, spending all your time doing something you don’t want to do in order to pay a petty light bill. So in that hospital room while Ricca was screaming and pushing Luce out, I changed my mind about wanting my son to be eternal. His little head looked sort of like a beam of light so I dropped my college Arabic for my high school Spanish. La Luz, the light. But light, it’s beautiful and all, but it generates heat: heat burns. That’s what this family shit does, it burns you. Sets you on fire. Burns you to a fucking crisp. All my sense is burned from me. Everything. I’m gutted like a burnt-out building. I’m burned. I can’t stand. One day I’m gonna topple over, a pile of fucking burnt ash that’ll burn forever.”
― Rion Amilcar Scott, Insurrections