The Violin Conspiracy Quotes
"You just put your head down and do the work. You do twice as much work as the white guy sitting next to you, and you do it twice as often, and you get half as far."
"It's about what you bring to the music. I didn't want to work with you because of your violin. I wanted to work with you because I'd never seen someone love music so much."
"You need to know that we're looking into you closely. The insurance money makes you a pretty obvious suspect."
"What do you want me to do? I don’t know who this kid is."
"You are going to have to leave before I call the cops. This is a private event."
"It’s not a question of fault. It’s just a question of opportunity."
"The only reason I didn’t throw you out is because I didn’t want to cause a scene."
"You got a lot of nerve, barging in here and accusing your mother of stealing that fiddle!"
"It was either my family or the Marks family. It had to be one of them."
"I want you to listen to me very carefully. That thing that happened to you was terrible. That man was sick."
"You work twice as hard. Even three times. For the rest of your life."
"You just have to be true to your own sweet self and not let them change you."
"I’ve never seen a Black man playing in an orchestra. There’s a reason for that."
"He’d never find PopPop’s fiddle. He’d need a system."
"I know it must have really hurt, especially for a sweet boy like you."
"This could be the start of a meteoric career for you, if that’s what you want."
"You work twice as hard. You hold your head up high, and you keep doing what you do."
"You can't trust them. They appraise, repair, and sell instruments—huge conflict of interest."
"This old beauty needs someone to really pay attention to her, really clean her up and bring her back."
"Every single day, you just remember that you're worthy of respect."
"I promised her again, right then, that I would keep working twice as hard. To make her proud."
"It’s just a PR stunt. The only reason he’s playing is because he has a Strad."
"I can't sell my grandma's violin. I’m going to keep this for the rest of my life and pass it down to my kids."
"Do the right thing and give us back the violin."
"They would like you to make arrangements to return our violin in a timely manner."
"Music has always been so important to our whole family."
"Each session improved, and soon he was jamming with several regular standards under his belt."
"New York City women were, without question, beautiful."
"He’d imagined the musician’s life would be filled with gorgeous women."
"She wasn’t really his type... But she was smiling at him—really smiling."
"He didn’t even register what she was saying until she touched his arm."
"Over the next couple days, Uncle Thurston tried calling and texting, and Ray ignored them all."
"He wasn’t good enough to play with certain orchestras during the other eleven months of the year, but would shine in February."
"You might want to invest in some diversity training, rather than paying for a soloist."
"I am a musician. I happen to be Black. That doesn’t mean that I am any less skilled or knowledgeable than any musician of any other race."
"I wouldn’t expect you to understand. These subtleties are lost on people like you."
"That violin is the only reason you are even in my presence."
"The violin went missing sometime during or after December 1864."
"They’re worried about the other lawsuit and they think you’ll lose the violin so they want to get it first."
"You can’t fire me, you arrogant son of a bitch."
"I don’t know about that. It’s ours, and we’re glad to come to a settlement arrangement for it."
"We know you’re often traveling, so we just wanted to see for ourselves that you’re taking good care of our violin."
"I got some sick days coming anyway. Where you want to go for breakfast?"
"Family really was special; the relationships were unlike any other. Fraught and perilous much of the time, but sweet as well."
"Music was a strong influence in my life, how I’d made music on a cheap school rental, how people surrounding me had supported me, saw something in me that I hadn’t even known existed."
"I learned to accept help and encouragement in every form it comes in."
"I’m doing everything humanly possible to raise the money. Imagine if five million of you sent me one US dollar. I could pay the ransom and get my violin back."
"I was alone now. I was desperately, terribly, alone."
"You just do. You lie on your bed for hours, you pull out the Lehman that you have to practice on."
"Here is what I realized in the gray shadows of my 3:00 a.m. vigils: He was alone now."
"Playing with this other violin was like playing with a prosthetic arm; it worked but was not the same."
"I tried to make the Lehman do what my Strad had done—with my own violin, it had been effortless."
"I was a finalist at the Tchaikovsky Competition. I would focus. I would kick Russian ass."
"He imagined his notes were water, or mercury, or silver—sliding into their ears, dissolving and thrumming into their blood."
"Music is about communication—a way of touching your fellow man beyond and above and below language; it is a language all its own."
"The final note hung in the air like a cloud, and he realized he was grinning from ear to ear."
"Privately, in his soul, Ray agreed. He was way better than all of them."
"He may have come in second, but he’d gone further than any other American—Black or white."
"Every day, no matter where he was, he’d find a busker or someone on the street and leave money or help otherwise when he could."
"As he fell asleep, he’d think about the day’s events and remember his grandmother’s Thanksgiving words to him, seasoned with love, potato peels, and sliced squash."
"My hope is that Ray’s story will inspire all of you—white or Black, Asian or Native American, straight or gay, transgender or cisgender, blond or dark haired, tall or short, big feet or small—to do what you love."
"Alone, we are a solitary violin, a lonely flute, a trumpet singing in the dark."