But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and one day we will win our freedom.

Here he was, slapping him five, grabbing his shoulder, and talking too loud in a performance of gregariousness. A walking flinch.

The capacity to suffer. Elwood—all the Nickel boys—existed in the capacity. Breathed in it, ate in it, dreamed in it. That was their lives now. Otherwise they would have perished. The beatings, the rapes, the unrelenting winnowing of themselves. They endured. But to love those who would have destroyed them? To make that leap? We will meet your

Like justice, it existed in theory.

Turner frowned. Any time a white man asked you about yourself, they were about to fuck you over.

not all of them were geniuses, Chickie Pete for example was not solving special relativity—but they had been denied even the simple pleasure of being ordinary. Hobbled and handicapped before the race even began, never figuring out how to be normal.

How to get through the day if every indignity capsized you in a ditch? One learned to focus one’s attention.

There are people who trick you and deliver emptiness with a smile, while others rob you of your self-respect. You need to remember who you are.

Turner knew his mother loved him. She just loved liquor more.