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" I was sort of a miserable teenager. "

Colson Whitehead

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

Colson Whitehead

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

Colson Whitehead

" 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

" I wrote a book of essays about New York called 'The Colossus of New York,' but it's not about - you know, when I'm writing about rush hour or Central Park, it's not a black Central Park, it's just Central Park, and it's not a black rush hour, it's just rush hour. "

Colson Whitehead

" 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. "

Colson Whitehead

" I was always into comic books and horror stories and a huge consumer of pop culture. And then I worked for awhile for 'The Village Voice'. "

Colson Whitehead

" I'm someone who just likes being in my cave and thinking up weird stuff. "

Colson Whitehead

" 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

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

Colson Whitehead

" Generally, I walk around in a glum mood. "

Colson Whitehead

" '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

" Schools don't teach American history that well, especially a lot of black American history. "

Colson Whitehead

" 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

" 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. "

Colson Whitehead

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

Colson Whitehead

" 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

" When I'm working on a book, I try to do eight pages a week. That seems like a good amount. Less than that, I'm not getting a nice momentum, and more than that, I'm probably putting out too much crap. "

Colson Whitehead

" 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

" Part of any book is establishing the rules at the end of the world. My first book, 'The Intuitionist,' takes place in an alternative world where elevator inspectors are important, so you have to establish rules, and part of that is, How do people talk? How do they behave? "

Colson Whitehead

" 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. "

Colson Whitehead

" 'Zone One' has one kind of an apocalypse, and 'The Underground Railroad' another. In both cases, the narrators are animated by a hope in a better place of refuge - in the last surviving human outpost, Up North. Does it exist? They can only believe. "

Colson Whitehead

" I'm just trying to keep things rich for me creatively and for the readers who follow me. "

Colson Whitehead

" 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

" 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. "

Colson Whitehead

" 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. "

Colson Whitehead

" 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

" Some people don't like my fiction, because they prefer the nonfiction. But moving around keeps the work fresh for me and, hopefully, for my one or two readers who follow me from book to book! "

Colson Whitehead

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

Colson Whitehead

" Anytime an African-American writes an unconventional novel, the writer gets compared to Ellison. But that's O.K. I am working in the African-American literary tradition. That's my aim and what I see as my mission. "

Colson Whitehead

" I was 7 years old when 'Roots' was first broadcast, and my parents gathered all us kids around the TV to learn about how we got here. But it wasn't until I sat down and immersed myself in the research that I got the barest inkling of what it meant to be a slave. "

Colson Whitehead