The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey

That's how powerful you are, girl...You pretty, but pretty alone is not what people see. You the kinda pretty, the kinda beauty, that's like a mirror. Men and women see themselves in you, only now they so beautiful that they can't bear to see you go.

The older you get the more you live in the past

We born dyin'...But you ask a man an' he talk like he gonna live forevah.

The great man say that life is pain," Coydog had said over eighty-five years before. "That mean if you love life, then you love the hurt come along wit' it. Now, if that ain't the blues, I don't know what is.

That’s how Ptolemy imagined the disposition of his memories, his thoughts: they were still his, still in the range of his thinking, but they were, many and most of them, locked on the other side a closed door that he’s lost the key for. So his memory became like secrets held away from his own mind. But these secrets were noisy things; they babbled and muttered behind the door, and so if he listened closely he might catch a snatch of something he once knew well.

There are times in your life when things line up and Fate takes a hand in your future," Ptolemy remembered Coydog saying. "When that happens, you got to move quick and take advantage of the sitchiation or you'll never know what might have been." "How do I know when it's time to move quick?" L'il Pea asked. "When somethin' big happens and then somethin' else come up.

When you get old you begin to understand that no one talks unless someone listens, and no one knows nuthin' less somebody else can understand.

Trustin’ a woman is like walkin’ in California,” Coydog would say. “You know there’s bound to be a quake sometimes but you just keep on walkin’ anyways. What else could you do?

Time is like a river,” Coydog had told the boy. “It come up behind ya hard and just keep right on goin’. You couldn’t stop it no more than you could fly away.

Money ain’t the root of all evil,” Coydog had told the boy Li’l Pea, “but it get a hold on some people like vines on a tree or the smell’a fungus on damp sheets. They’s some people need money before love or laughter. All you can do is feel sorry for someone like that.

There was something about his grandfather's death, about men who love their sons . . .

The great man say that life is pain,” Coydog had said over eighty-five years before. “That mean if you love life, then you love the hurt come along wit’ it. Now, if that ain’t the blues, I don’t know what is.

How you know all that, Coy?” the boy, Li’l Pea, had asked. “You said that the white man’s history books lie about us all the time.” “They do.

We aren’t quite sure who the enemy is. That’s what makes this war so hard.

The black woman, who looked like a white woman passing for black, was talking about the war.

We all got secrets, boy. An’ the older we get the more secrets we got. Child tell ya anything, but a man just sip his drink an’ keep his mouf shet. But he might have one friend he talk to. Was you that friend to Reggie?

If you’d sing her boop-boop-pe-doop song he’d give you two nickels.” Hilda “Niecie” Brown frowned and cocked her head again. Her eyes narrowed to slits, and after a moment or two she nodded.

Devil the most honest man walk the earth, Coydog had said. He offer you his treasure and take your soul. They call him the Prince of Liars, but he ain’t no different than a bartender: you pays your nickel and drinks your poison.

Rich man is the man live in his own skin,” the old thief countered. “Black as oil, white as cane sugah, yellah like gold—that’s riches for ya, boy. All the rest is jes’ wastin’ time.

doctor is a king and the nurse is like the five of hearts. You at least a queen, Reggie, I mean Robyn. I’m sorry.

Ptolemy understood the question but the answer was the white tail of a deer flitting through the trees

It has been a long time, Ptolemy,” the store owner said. “Fifteen years?” “Maybe more,” Ptolemy agreed. “I’ve never seen you in a suit before.” “Bought it for a funeral,” Ptolemy said lightly. “Whose?” “Mine,” the old man said.

I seen it all,” old Coydog used to say, “but that don’t mean I seen everything.