Quotessence
Home / Books / The Narrows

The Narrows

Book by Ann Petry · 16 quotes · Blacks, African Americans, Black Men

Filter quotes by topic

AllBlacksAfrican AmericansBlack MenRelationshipsWhite WomenWhitesWomenFearHateMenRace RelationsWealthAffairsAfrican American MenAgonyAmericaAppearancesBeing AfraidBrothelsChurch

The Narrows Quotes

“The attendant looked at Camilo, looked at Link, blandly, incuriously. Link thought, In New York all the black boys who go in for what they like to call Caddies also go in for white girls. So this is old hat to him. He figures that if I'm rich enough--numbers or women or rackets of one kind or another--to drive one of these crates, then almost any good-looking white girl is going to find me acceptable. Money transforms the black male. Makes him beautiful in the eyes of the white female. Black and comely. No. It was black but comely, take it for granted that blackness and comeliness were not only possible but went hand in hand.”

RelationshipsWealthMoneyAfrican AmericansBlacksWhitesBlack MenWhite Women
Book:The Narrows
Create image

“The gravel road widened into a large turnaround where three similar looking and designed brothels sat waiting for customers. They were called Sheila's Front Porch, Tawny's High Five Ranch and Miss Delilah's House of Holies. "Nice," Rachel said as we surveyed the scene. "why are these places always named after women -- as if women actually own them?" "You got me. I guess Mister Dave's House of Holies wouldn't go over so well with the guys." Rachel smiled. "You're right. I guess it's a shrewd move. Name a place of female degradation and slavery after a female and it doesn't sound so bad, does it? It's packaging.”

WomenSlaveryMarketingExploitationProstitutionDegradationAppearancesBrothels
Book:The Narrows
Create image

“Well, of course," Camilo said, and grinned back at JohnRolandJoseph and his long line of bought and paid for ancestors, as friendly and unselfconscious as though all her life she had been looking for men, black men, big black men--plantation bucks (stud) look at his thighs, look at that back, look at his dingle-dangle--as though all her life she had been looking for colored men to whom she was not married, to whom she would never be married because she was already married to a nice young white man, as though all her life she had told uniformed monkeys who pulled elevators in rundown colored hotels, in Harlem, that she couldn't find, had lost, misplaced, a gentleman of color named Williams.”

WomenRelationshipsAfrican AmericansBlacksRace RelationsWhitesAffairsBlack MenWhite Women
Book:The Narrows
Create image

“Back in the eighteenth century I would have been a sliver-collar boy. Did you ever hear about them? The highborn ladies of the court collected monkeys and peacocks and little blackamoors for pets. Slender young dark brown boys done up in silk with turbans wrapped around their heads and silver collars around their necks, and the name of the lady to whom they belonged was engraved on the silver collar. They were supposed to be pets like the peacocks and the monkeys, but in the old oil paintings, the lady's delicate white hand always fondled the silkclad shoulder of the silver-collar boy. So you knew they were something more useful, more serviceable--”

MenRelationshipsBlacksInterracial RelationshipsAfrican American MenKept Men
Book:The Narrows
Create image

“You've driven one of these before." "Yeah." One of these, nice way to put it. Oh, you've held a tennis racket before, oh, you've worn shoes before, oh, you've used a toothbrush before. Bug Eyes is a weisenheimer but he was right. The lady is white. That surprised condescension in the voice is an unmistakable characteristic of the Caucasian, a special characteristic of the female Caucasian. The funny thing is they don't even know they do it.”

RaceMen And WomenBlacksRace RelationsWhitesCondescensionWhite Women
Book:The Narrows
Create image

“She supposed the young colored men of Link's generation couldn't have manners like Mr. Powther's, though she didn't know why. Wars and atom bombs and the fact that there was so much hate in the world might have something to do with it. There were times when she had thought that rudeness was a characteristic of Link's; that other young men had a natural courtesy he would never have. Then she would see or hear something in The Narrows that suggested all these young men were alike--something had brutalized them. But what?”

WarHateWeaponsMannersAfrican AmericansBlacksCourtesyBlack Men
Book:The Narrows
Create image

“All marriages are like this. The component parts are contempt and irritation because we know each other by heart, by rote; we're all graduates of the blab school for double harness. Then he looked at the redgold hair, the sweet curve of the mouth, and thought, Truthlie, because marriage is more than that. It's part hate, part love. It's remembered agony, and remembered delight.”

LoveHateRelationshipsMarriageDelightContemptAgonyIrritation
Book:The Narrows
Create image