Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" I take inspiration from books, movies, television, music - it all goes in the hopper. Depending on the project, I'm drawing from this or that piece of art that has stayed with me. Toni Morrison, George Romero, Sonic Youth - they are all in there. "

Colson Whitehead

Art

Drawing

Related Quotes:

" I've always thought the Nat Turner story to be very interesting. "

" 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. "

" If you go to a big publishing house, editorial aside, it's completely white. "

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

" Stephen King in general, as well as films of the apocalypse from the '70s, had a big influence on 'Zone One.' "

" 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. "

" I grew up reading the 'Village Voice' and wanting to be one of these multidisciplinary music writers, film writers, book writers. And I lucked out getting a job at the 'Voice' right after college. "

" 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. "

" Growing up as a product of the black civil-rights movement, I had a lot of different models for black weirdness, whether it's Richard Pryor or James Baldwin or Jimmy Walker. "

Colson Whitehead

Growing Up

Black

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

" The Declaration of Independence is that sacred American text so full of meaning and purpose and yet quite empty if you examine it and pull it apart because the words 'All Men' exclude a vast number of citizens. "

" Some books are well-received with critics; other books sell. "

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

" I'm raising kids, and so much of American culture sustains me and gives me things to think about and work on. "

Colson Whitehead

American

Culture

" 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. "

" If the world's nations can set aside their petty bickering over religion, politics, and territory, certainly I can 'get that Olympic Spirit' and rise above my prejudices. "

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

" 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

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

Colson Whitehead

Books

Day

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I have a good poker face because I am half-dead inside. "

" I'm of that subset of native New Yorkers who can't drive. "

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

" In 'John Henry Days,' I was taking my idea of junketeering and sort of blowing it up to absurd extremes. "

" I was sort of a miserable teenager. "

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

" 'Zone One' comes out of me trying to work through some of my ideas about why, for me personally, zombies are scary. "

Colson Whitehead

Trying

Why

" Usually, when I write a novel, it takes me about 100 pages to figure out the voice of the narrator. "

Colson Whitehead

Write

Voice