The Last White Man Quotes

“…the way people act around you, it changes what you are, who you are.”
― Mohsin Hamid, The Last White Man

“At work, Anders became quieter than he used to be, less sure of how any action of his would be perceived, and it was like he had been recast as a supporting character on the set of the television show where his life was being enacted, but even so he had not yet lost all hope that a return to his old role was possible, to his old centrality, or if not centrality, then at least to a role better than this peripheral one.”
― Mohsin Hamid, The Last White Man

“Anders hoped he looked more brave than he felt, and the three of them were armed but they stopped when they saw him, a few paces away, and they stared at him with contempt and fascination, and Anders thought the one he knew stared at him with enthusiasm too, like this was special for him, personal, and Anders could perceive how self-righteous they were, how certain that he, Anders, was in the wrong, that he was the bandit here, trying to rob them, they who had been robbed already and had nothing left, just their whiteness, the worth of it, and they would not let him take that, not him nor anyone else.”
― Mohsin Hamid, The Last White Man

“Anders had decided he would talk to him, finally after all these years, he would stop being nice to him, which was not really being nice to him, it was just treating the cleaning guy like a puppy, a dog, that you give a couple pats to, and call out good boy, and instead Anders would talk to him, and see what he had to say, not because Anders was better than before, but because the way Anders saw stuff was not the same, because the cleaning guy could probably tell Anders a few things, and Anders could probably stand to learn.”
― Mohsin Hamid, The Last White Man

“The clerk was a beautiful man with delicate brown eyes and big brown hands, and he had been beautiful when he was a boy too, but not this beautiful, and she asked him if he was happy for having changed, and he said his changing colour had been only one of several changes he had been through recently, it all flowed together, he had gotten married the week before her brother's funeral, yes married, he repeated to her expression of surprise, his own expression no less surprised, as though he could barely believe it himself, and he was happy in his marriage, and he loved his husband, but her brother was there too, with him, and he would always be there, he knew that now, he had known it at the funeral, he had married and found a love and lost a love and changed colour, and which of these was most significant for him he could not say, but probably, probably it was not the colour.”
― Mohsin Hamid, The Last White Man