Mateo Askaripour > Quotes

“An opportunity means change. An opportunity means action. But most of all, an opportunity means the chance of failure. And it's the potential for failure, more than failure itself, that stops so many people from beginning anything.”
― Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck

“Ain’ no Black people need no therapists, ’cause we don’ be havin’ those mental issues. OCD, ADD, PTSD, and all those other acronyms they be comin’ up with every day. I’m tellin’ you, the only acronyms Black folk need help with is the NYPD, FBI, CIA, KKK, and KFC, ’cause I know they be puttin’ shit in those twelve-piece bucket meals to make us addicted to them. All that saturated fat, sodium.”
― Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck

“It’s the duty of every man and woman who has achieved some success in life to pass it on, because when we’re gone, what matters most isn’t what we were able to attain but who we were able to help.”
― Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck

“My teeth are status quo and powerful, also known as white and straight...”
― Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck

“The day that changed my life was like every other day before it, except that it changed my life.”
― Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck

“in any game, you gotta have a short-term memory. Someone tell you some shit you don’ like? Forget it the minute they mouth close. Someone tell you some shit you do like? Man,” he said, sucking his teeth so hard that I swore he was about to swallow them, “you betta forget that shit even quicker.”
― Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck

“can’ nothin’ grow without fertile soil or the right hands for it. This right here,” he said, touching a dusty finger to my temple, “is soil. Jus’ like this garden. And only you can decide what grows and who you allow to get their hands in it. Understand?”
― Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck

“In the middle of every difficulty lies an opportunity,”
― Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck

“The media feeds off of black blood like vampires. They want more of it, and they’ll pit us against each other jus’ to see it fly like firecrackers on the Fourth of July.”
― Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck

“Shit, it could’ve just been as small as a friend laughing at you when you told them your dreams, and that little laugh, that seed of doubt, crushed you. You felt less than, like you weren’t worthy of being more, of being better. Like who you were wasn’t good enough.”
― Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck

“Whether you sell someone on yes or they sell you on no, a sale is always made.”
― Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck

“An opportunity means change. An opportunity means action. But most of all, an opportunity means the chance of failure. And it’s the potential for failure, more than failure itself, that stops so many people from beginning anything.”
― Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck

“And it was then, as I walked out of his office past the hundreds of salespeople laughing as they saw their fearless leader fall, that I realized it was freedom that had motivated me from the very beginning. Not money, power, the need to prove myself, or even to make Ma proud, but the freedom to breathe where I want, when I want, how I want, and with whom I want in my beautiful brown skin.”
― Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck

“You see, it's easy for someone to walk around telling everyone that they're "jus' waitin' for the right opportunity," but an entirely different thing when they actually receive it. An opportunity means change. An opportunity means action. But most of all, an opportunity means the chance of failure. And it's the potential of failure, more than failure itself, that stops so many people from beginning anything.”
― Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck

“Connections, like treasury bonds, are issued to every rich white person upon exiting the womb. Whenever one of them gets high and crashes their parents’ car, whenever they get busted for buying coke from an undercover, whenever they get caught messing with the wrong gangsters on vacation, they make a call, send a text, or whip out their AMEX.”
― Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck

“What, you think we live in a world where innocent Black men don’t spend five, twenty, or thirty years in jail only to be let out with an apology? Get real, Buckaroo.”
― Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck

“I don’t even know what all of this is, man. Is this some kind of illegal operation or an insane asylum?”
― Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck

“The good and the great are only separated by the willingness to sacrifice. —KAREEM ABDUL-JABBAR”
― Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck

“I thought the whole scene was extreme and straight out of Any Given Sunday, but I’d be lying if I said my heart wasn’t pounding. No way in hell had I bought into their madness, but the energy in the air crackled like static.”
― Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck

“It’s the duty of every man and woman who has achieved some success in life to pass it on, because when we’re gone, what matters most isn’t what we were able to attain but who we were able to help. She was right. And”
― Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck

“What, you mad because I didn’ say anythin’? Maybe if you wasn’ runnin’ ’round day and night, gettin’ into trouble with those white folk in Manhattan, you woulda seen that she was losin’ weight, havin’ trouble breathin’, and forgettin’ things. Don’ put none of that on me. Be a man and accept responsibility.”
― Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck

“had no plans of becoming “best bros” with Clyde, but I figured it was better to let bygones be bygones than be the “angry Black man” at Sumwun.”
― Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck

“Listen, Buck. You know I love you like a brother. Everyone thought it’d be good to have a younger member of the sales team with me who won’t come off as a holier-than-thou white frat bro, you know?”
― Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck

“Same team, same dream?' I asked. 'Always.”
― Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck

“That sounds an awful like what right-wingers say about guns, Darren. Any tool can be turned into a weapon, no?”
― Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck

“This isn’t you, D. This isn’t you at all. Please apologize to my dad and let’s just have tea. It’ll be fine, right, baba?”
― Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck

“Fuck, fuck, fuck. I hoped I hadn’t had sex with her. I had a strict no white women policy, a policy I’d never violated before on account of what Wally Cat said all those months ago. I wasn’t superstitious, but I preferred being on the safe side.”
― Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck

“But before I go, you must be curious as to how I ended up where I am today—writing to you from the penthouse of a one-hundred-one-year-old building worth millions of dollars that overlooks Central Park.”
― Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck

“Anyone who drinks coffee craves it, needs it, and shakes, scratches, jerks, and twerks for it every minute it’s not coursing through their collapsed veins.”
― Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck

“rent that’s rising because of trust-fund babies like you who want to buy bigger apartments at half the price. So don’t tell me you know me, because you don’t.”
― Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck