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" 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

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" I like to know how I'm supposed to feel about things. Just a little clue or hint. "

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" I wanted to be one of these multidisciplinary critics who is doing music one day, TV the next, and books the next. "

Colson Whitehead

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Day

" '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. "

" I'm not a teacher; I'm not a historian. I'm trying to create a world for my characters. "

" You can raze the old buildings and erect magnificent corporate towers, hose down Port Authority, but you can't change people. "

" In '82 and '83, that was the rise of the VCR. Every Friday, my brother and I would go to Crazy Eddie's - which was a video store in Manhattan - and rent five horror movies. And that's basically what we did, basically, for three years. Becoming social misfits. "

" I love getting out of the Q train at Union Square. It's such a mix of people, like a party. There's always an errand you can do along there, whether it's picking up contacts or buying poker chips. "

" I admire Vegas's purity, its entirely wholesome artificiality. "

" Zombies are a great rhetorical prop to talk about people and paranoia, and they are a good vehicle for my misanthropy. "

" It's always hard to write and get your words out there, to find an editor, a publisher - readers! - who are going to appreciate them. "

" Early on my career, I figured out that I just have to write the book I have to write at that moment. Whatever else is going on in the culture is just not that important. If you could get the culture to write your book, that would be great. But the culture can't write your book. "

" Part of being in New York is being able to brag about what used to be there. "

" I like questions that tee me up to make weird jokes, frankly. "

Colson Whitehead

Questions

" I am not sure the issue of race in America will ever be completely solved. "

" 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. "

" My mom's mother was from Virginia, but I don't feel much of a tie. I'm very much anti-South for many, many reasons. Whenever I go down there, people are always looking at me funny, you know. "

" A lot of my books have started with an abstract premise. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Most of my books have always worked through juxtaposition, jumping through different point of views and time. "

" Monsters are a storytelling tool, like domestic realism and close third. "

" I usually have two or three ideas floating around. When I have free time, the one I end up thinking most about is the one I end up pursuing. "

" I don't generally follow sports. At an early age, I discovered that nature had apportioned me only a small reserve of enthusiasm. Best to ration. "

" The movie 'Rock 'n' Roll High School' was a sacred text in my household. "

" I was allowed to write about race using an elevator metaphor because of Toni Morrison and David Bradley and Ralph Ellison. Hopefully, me being weird allows someone who's 16 and wanting to write inspires them to have their own weird take on the world, and they can see the different kinds of African American voices being published. "

Colson Whitehead

Weird

American

" 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. "

" I envied kids who played soccer and football, but that was not my gig. "

" I'm always trying to switch voices and genres. "

" 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. "

" There's not a lot of good TV. "

Colson Whitehead

Good

Lot