Black Boy

1 use

With my bright idea bubbling in my mind, wishing to allay Granny's fears for my soul, wanting to make her know that my heart was not all black and wrong, that I was actually giving serious thought to her passionate pleadings, I leaned to her and whispered: "You see, granny, if I ever saw an angel like Jacob did, then I'd believe."†

2 uses

Aunt Addie was the only teacher and from the first day an acute, bitter antagonism sprang up between us.†

1 use

1 use

Finally I heard my mother's name called; she rose and began weeping so copiously that she could not talk for a few moments; at last she managed to say that her husband had deserted her and her two children, that her children were hungry, that they stayed hungry, that she worked, that she was trying to raise them alone.†

2 uses

But in the presence of whites he would play the role of a clown of the most debased and degraded type.†

2 uses

I was so hurt and humiliated that I disavowed all relations with Young.†

1 use

I would remember to dissemble for short periods, then I would forget and act straight and human again, not with the desireto harm anybody, but merely forgetting the artificial status of race and class.†

1 use

I knew that once this system became entrenched on earth, for good or bad, it could not fail, that all Europe and her armies could not destroy the Soviet Union, that the spirit of self-sacrifice that Communism engendered in men would astound the world.†

2 uses

The elders of her church expounded a gospel clogged with images of vast lakes of eternal fire, of seas vanishing, of valleys of dry bones, of the sun burning to ashes, of the moon turning to blood, of stars falling to the earth, of a wooden staff being transformed into a serpent, of voices speaking out of clouds, of men walking upon water, of God riding whirlwinds, of water changing into wine, of the dead rising and living, of the blind seeing, of the lame walking; a salvation that...†

1 use

I was conscious of what was happening to me; I knew that my attitude of watchful wonder had usurped all other feelings, had become the meaning of my life, an integral part of my personality; that I was striving to live and measure all things by it.†

1 use

If the woman refused, they would report to the office that the woman was a malingerer.†

1 use

Young accused Swann of being a traitor to the workers, an opportunist, a collaborator with the police, and an adherentof Trotsky.†

1 use

At the age of twelve, before I had had one full year of formal schooling, I had a conception of life that no experience would ever erase, a predilection for what was real that no argument could ever gainsay, a sense of the world that was mine and mine alone, a notion as to what life meant that no education could ever alter, a conviction that the meaning of living came only when one was struggling to wring a meaning out of meaningless suffering.†

1 use

Let them know that it is their right to petition for a redress of their grievances.†

1 use

She was the oldest member of her church and it would have been unseemly if the only grandchild in her home could not be brought to these important services; she felt that if I were completely remiss in religious conformity it would cast doubt upon the stanchness of her faith, her capacity to convince and persuade, or merely upon her ability to apply the rod to my backside.†

1 use

Feeling that my plan was working, I resumed my worship of the elder's wife with a cleansed conscience, wondering what it would be like to kiss her, longing to feel some of the sensuous emotions of which my reading had made me conscious.†

2 uses

It was possible that the sweetly sonorous hymns stimulated me sexually, and it might have been that my fleshy fantasies, in turn, having as their foundation my already inflated sensibility, made me love the masochistic prayers.†

2 uses

Angered by having been hauled into court, my father now spurned us completely.†

3 uses

As an insurance agent, it was necessary for me to take part in one swindle.†

2 uses

Before I had been made to go to church, I had given God's existence a sort of tacit assent, but after having seen His creatures serve Him at first hand, I had had my doubts.†