Lovecraft Country

But stories are like people, Atticus. Loving them doesn’t make them perfect. You try to cherish their virtues and overlook their flaws. The flaws are still there, though. " "But you don’t get mad. Not like Pop does." "No, that’s true, I don’t get mad. Not at stories. They do disappoint me sometimes." He looked at the shelves. "Sometimes, they stab me in the heart.

That’s the horror, the most awful thing: to have a child the world wants to destroy and know that you’re helpless to help him. Nothing worse than that. Nothing worse.

But stories are like people, Atticus. Loving them doesn't make them perfect. You try to cherish their virtues and overlook their flaws. The flaws are still there, though. But you don't get mad.

A wanderer in darkness, she followed an eccentric orbit, each new disturbance angling her closer to some long-awaited rendezvous. She could only hope that when the moment came, she’d be wise enough to know it, and brave enough to act.

White people in his experience were far more transparent. The most hateful rarely bothered to conceal their hostility, and when for some reason they did try to hide their feelings, they generally exhibited all the guile of five-year-olds, who cannot imagine that the world sees them other than as they wish to be seen.

What you going to do?" she cried. "You break my neck, and the what? You think I won't come back and haunt you? Go ahead! Make me a ghost! See what that gets you.

the real reason he’d keep running into monsters was because he was black, and when you’re black in America, there’s always a monster. Sometimes it’s Lovecraftian Elder Gods; sometimes it’s the police, or the Klan, or the Registrar of Voters.

Atticus tried not to care, telling himself paperbacks were meant to be abused, but it was hard, like watching friends get knocked around.

Ex-Confederate? What’s that, like an ex-Nazi? The man fought for slavery! You don’t get to put an ‘ex-’ in front of that!

Oh, what? You’re too smart to believe in ghosts? Flying across the universe, though, that’s logical

I’m saying people can be real creative when it comes to ducking responsibility.

Warren Dandridge had insisted that poker was a Christian game: Players who practiced virtue-- learning and respecting the odds, keeping their emotions in check, managing their bankrolls intelligently-- tended to prosper, while those who succumbed to vice-- chasing long shots, letting passion rule reason-- went the way of all unrepentant sinners.

And you never know when a meal will be your last . . . None of us do.

It never fails,” Montrose said. “No matter what they do to you, afterwards it’s like nothing happened. You’re supposed to just be grateful you’re still breathing.

For those wishing to vacation abroad, the agency could recommend destinations that were relatively free of local race prejudice and, just as important, not overrun by white American tourists—for nothing was more frustrating than traveling thousands of miles only to encounter the same bigots you dealt with every day at home.

White folks' belief that Negroes were magically gifted struck her as the most absurd form of superstition. Sorcery was in the Bible, which meant it was real, but to Momma it was self-evident that like every other kind of power it would be concentrated in the hands of the mighty.

I know a lot about what I don’t want, but not much about what I do

And then entropy sets to work, as it will. Paradise is lost; Babel and the Flood bring confusion and disorder; what was an elegant hierarchy becomes a mess of tribes and nations.

For roughly the millionth time in his life he asked himself, Is there any way I can just ignore this and get on with my day? and he reflected that it was the minor slights that were the hardest to let pass.

I’m sick of belonging to an Order that wants to change the world but can’t even change itself. I’m tired of the bullshit.

Montrose could have simply forbidden him to read such things. Atticus knew other sons whose fathers had done that, who’d thrown their comic books and Amazing Stories collections into the trash. But Montrose, with limited exceptions, didn’t believe in book-banning. He always insisted he just wanted Atticus to think about what he read, rather than imbibing it mindlessly, and Atticus, if he were being honest, had to admit that was a reasonable goal.

The law’s not for colored people, not down there .

You can’t buy goodwill with money that ain’t yours. It’s not a favor to pay what’s owed.

You’d be a better Christian if you learned how to read, Ruby had told him. Cain’s mark was a protection; if the mark was his skin color, then God must have turned him white, not black.

He recognized the perverse mix of anger and glee in his father’s voice and knew that something he enjoyed was about to be irrevocably spoiled.

One man’s honored tradition is another’s superstition—and that’s where the knives come out.

Day 4,932, that’s the morning Mary didn’t wake up.

Hello, Planet X. Nice to finally meet you.

I’m staying. Dead or alive, at war or in peace—that’s up to you.

He liked who and what he was. He always had. It was God’s other creatures he occasionally had problems with.