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" I admire Vegas's purity, its entirely wholesome artificiality. "
Colson Whitehead
Vegas
Wholesome
Purity
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" Having a wife and kids drove home the brutal reality of the slave system for me - the price it exacted on families. On the other hand, whenever I despair over our history, I am brought back to hope, the hope that things will get better, for my children. "
Colson Whitehead
Children
History
Home
" In the apocalypse, I think those average, mediocre folks are the ones who are going to live. "
Colson Whitehead
Average
Those
Who
" A lot of my writer friends live near me, and that makes people think we just hang around with one another in cafes, trading work and discussing 'Harper's' and what not. But I rarely see them. We're home working. "
Colson Whitehead
Work
Think
Home
" I've always had a love of cards, ever since I was a little kid. I think poker, as a system, describes the chaos of the world. Our sudden reversals, our freak streaks of fortune. The belief that the next hand can save you, and the inevitable failure of the next hand to save you. I think that describes my world view pretty well. "
Colson Whitehead
Think
View
World
" The contemporary casino is more than a gambling destination: it is a multifarious pleasure enclosure intended to satisfy every member of the family unit. "
Colson Whitehead
Gambling
Family
Destination
" 'Zone One' comes out of me trying to work through some of my ideas about why, for me personally, zombies are scary. "
Colson Whitehead
Me
Trying
Why
" The movie 'Rock 'n' Roll High School' was a sacred text in my household. "
Colson Whitehead
High School
Rock
School
" I'm just trying to keep things rich for me creatively and for the readers who follow me. "
Colson Whitehead
Keep
Trying
Things
" If you're writing a detective novel or horror or sci-fi, you want to expand or reinvigorate the genre in your own little way. "
Colson Whitehead
Way
Horror
Own
" In the 1930s, the government paid writers to interview 80- and 90-year-old former slaves, and I read those accounts. I came away realizing - not surprisingly - that many slave masters were sadists who spent a lot of time thinking up creative ways of hurting people. "
Colson Whitehead
Away
People
Thinking
" Once I got to college, it seemed that the Hamptons were a little bit too posh for me and didn't represent the kind of values I was embracing in my late teens. So, I didn't go out there, except to visit my parents, for a long time. And then, after 9/11, I discovered it was a nice, mellow place to hang out. "
Colson Whitehead
Time
Me
College
" I live in Brooklyn. I moved here 14 years ago for the cheap rent. It was a little embarrassing because I was raised in Manhattan, and so I was a bit of a snob about the other boroughs. "
Colson Whitehead
Rent
Years
Live
" Growing up devouring horror comics and novels, and being inspired to become a writer because of horror novels, movies, and comic books, I always knew I was going to write a horror novel. "
Colson Whitehead
Horror
Growing
Growing Up
" I'm not a teacher; I'm not a historian. I'm trying to create a world for my characters. "
Colson Whitehead
Create
World
Trying
" You can't rush inspiration. "
Colson Whitehead
You
Rush
Inspiration
" A lot of my books have started with an abstract premise. "
Colson Whitehead
Premise
Books
Abstract
" A lot of early Misfits song titles are inspired by old B-movies, which were my Popeye's spinach when I was a kid. "
Colson Whitehead
Inspired
Kid
Old
" I never actually went anywhere when I was a journalist. I was a critic, and I just sort of got stuff in the mail and chatted about it. "
Colson Whitehead
Just
Never
Mail
" I'm not a representative of blackness, and I'm not a healer. "
Colson Whitehead
Representative
Healer
Blackness
" In 'John Henry Days,' I was taking my idea of junketeering and sort of blowing it up to absurd extremes. "
Colson Whitehead
Absurd
Days
Idea
" I always try to mix it up with each book - changing tone, changing style keeps the work very vital for me. "
Colson Whitehead
Work
Try
Me
" In college, I wrote maybe three short stories. "
Colson Whitehead
Short
Maybe
College
" Other people have hang-ups about what's literary or genre or whatever, and that's sort of not my problem. You're supposed to write what you have to write, and you're supposed to keep moving. "
Colson Whitehead
You
Moving
Write
" 'John Henry Days' was already half in the can before my first book came out, so I'd already started something that was big and sprawling - I just had to finish it. "
Colson Whitehead
Started
First
Finish
" Zombies are a great rhetorical prop to talk about people and paranoia, and they are a good vehicle for my misanthropy. "
Colson Whitehead
Good
Paranoia
People
" Most of my books have always worked through juxtaposition, jumping through different point of views and time. "
Colson Whitehead
Books
Different
Point
" If you go to a big publishing house, editorial aside, it's completely white. "
Colson Whitehead
White
Publishing
Big
" The idea of sacrifice is integral to the John Henry myth. Heroic figures have to die in order for us to have our stories; we live and stand on their bones. "
Colson Whitehead
Die
Us
Stand
" Slavery was a violent, brutal, immoral system, and in accurately depicting how it worked, you have to include that, obviously. Or else you are lying. "
Colson Whitehead
System
Brutal
How
" I knew that a zombie book would not particularly appeal to some of my previous readers, but it was artistically compelling, and being able to do a short nonfiction book about poker was really fun and great. "
Colson Whitehead
Zombie
Poker
Book