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" I started writing in the '90s, so I was free to just have an eccentric career and not conform to some idea of what a black writer has to do. I didn't have the burden of representation. "
Colson Whitehead
Free
Black
Writing
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" In 'John Henry Days,' I was taking my idea of junketeering and sort of blowing it up to absurd extremes. "
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Absurd
Days
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" 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
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Family
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" I was sort of a miserable teenager. "
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Miserable
Sort
Teenager
" 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
" I write at home. I like to be able to take a nap, watch TV, make a sandwich, and if I wake up and don't feel like working, I'm not going to bang my head on my desk all day: I'll go out and do something else. "
Colson Whitehead
Watch
Home
Nap
" I envied kids who played soccer and football, but that was not my gig. "
Colson Whitehead
Played
Kids
Gig
" You can raze the old buildings and erect magnificent corporate towers, hose down Port Authority, but you can't change people. "
Colson Whitehead
Down
People
Authority
" Write what you know. "
Colson Whitehead
Write
You
Know
" Being a slave meant never having the stability of knowing your family would be together as many years as God designed it to be. It meant you could come back from picking cotton in a field to find that your children are gone, your husband's gone, your mother's gone. "
Colson Whitehead
Together
Children
Family
" I've always thought the Nat Turner story to be very interesting. "
Colson Whitehead
Interesting
Always
Thought
" 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
" There are good writers and bad writers. It's hard to find writers who really speak to you, but the work is out there. "
Colson Whitehead
Bad
Find
Good
" 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
" If self-absorption, vague yearnings, and a nagging sense of incompleteness are sins, then surely I will burn for all eternity, and I will save you a seat. "
Colson Whitehead
Vague
Sense
Eternity
" 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
" The terror of figuring out a new genre, of telling a new story, is what makes the job exciting, keeps me from getting bored, and I assume it keeps whoever follows my work from getting bored as well. "
Colson Whitehead
Job
Work
Bored
" I enjoy thinking about how race plays out over the centuries, how technology evolves, how cities transform themselves. These subjects are present in some of my books and absent in others. "
Colson Whitehead
Over
Race
Technology
" There's always an attack on the sophomore novel from some quarters. "
Colson Whitehead
Always
Some
Sophomore
" 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
" Schools don't teach American history that well, especially a lot of black American history. "
Colson Whitehead
American
Well
Teach
" 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
" In college, I wrote maybe three short stories. "
Colson Whitehead
Short
Maybe
College
" I like to explore different ideas of race, how the concept of race has evolved in the country. It's one thing I enjoy talking about, but I don't feel compelled to talk about it. "
Colson Whitehead
Race
Ideas
Feel
" I like to know how I'm supposed to feel about things. Just a little clue or hint. "
Colson Whitehead
Like
Just
Feel
" If you go to a big publishing house, editorial aside, it's completely white. "
Colson Whitehead
White
Publishing
Big
" 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
" I get invited to do panels with other Brooklyn writers to discuss what it's like to be a writer in Brooklyn. I expect it's like writing in Manhattan, but there aren't as many tourists walking very slowly in front of you when you step out for coffee. It's like writing in Paris, but there are fewer people speaking French. "
Colson Whitehead
People
Walking
Step
" If you write about race in 1850, you end up talking about race today because in many ways, so little has changed. "
Colson Whitehead
Write
Talking
Race
" I'm of that subset of native New Yorkers who can't drive. "
Colson Whitehead
New
Native
New Yorkers
" 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