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13 Must-Read Quotes From James by Percival Everett
Discover best quotes from Percival Everett’s James
James by Percival Everett is a powerful story with really inspiring quotes that stuck with me. It follows Jim, an enslaved man, who escapes to Jackson Island to avoid being separated from his family. Soon he is joined by Huck Finn and together they travel down the Mississippi River. The book reimagines Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and shows Jim’s bravery, intelligence, and kindness.
Throughout the story, Everett uses humor and clever insights to explore important themes like freedom and survival. This is one of the best historical fiction I loved. so, I’ve decided to include some the best quotes from James to celebrate the courage and heart that Everett brings to life.
James by Percival Everett Summary

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW’S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE • KIRKUS PRIZE WINNER
A brilliant reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—both harrowing and ferociously funny—told from the enslaved Jim’s point of view
When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.
Brimming with the electrifying humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a literary icon, this brilliant and tender novel radically illuminates Jim’s agency, intelligence, and compassion as never before. James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first-century American literature.
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Best James by Percival Everett Quotes

“At that moment the power of reading made itself clear and real to me. If I could see the words, then no one could control them or what I got from them. They couldn’t even know if I was merely seeing them or reading them, sounding them out or comprehending them. It was a completely private affair and completely free and, therefore, completely subversive.”
If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not learning.

Belief has nothing to do with truth.
I had never seen a white man filled with such fear.
I hated the world that wouldn’t let me apply justice without the certain retaliation of injustice.
I can tell you that I am a man who is cognizant of his world, a man who has a family, who loves a family, who has been torn from his family, a man who can read and write, a man who will not let his story be self-related, but self-written.

There is no God, child. There’s religion but there’s no God of theirs.
I did not look away. I wanted to feel the anger. I was befriending my anger, learning not only how to feel it, but perhaps how to use it.
We’re slaves. We’re not anywhere. Free person, he can be where he wants to be. The only place we can ever be is in slavery

Which would frighten you more? A slave who is crazy or a slave who is sane and sees you clearly
I chose the word enemy, and still do, as oppressor necessarily supposes a victim.
I am a sign. I am your future. I am James.
I felt tired of the failures of men. They were always failing in the most basic ways, like looking down or away at the moment when they should be gutsy enough to meet your eye.
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