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" If you want to understand America, it's slavery. "

Colson Whitehead

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

Colson Whitehead

" A lot of early Misfits song titles are inspired by old B-movies, which were my Popeye's spinach when I was a kid. "

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" 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. "

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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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" I always try to mix it up with each book - changing tone, changing style keeps the work very vital for me. "

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

Colson Whitehead

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

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

" 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

" 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

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

Colson Whitehead

" 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

" In college, I wrote maybe three short stories. "

Colson Whitehead

" 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

" 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

" 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

" 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

" 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

" There's always an attack on the sophomore novel from some quarters. "

Colson Whitehead

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

Colson Whitehead

" 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. "

Colson Whitehead

" I try to have each book be an antidote to the one before. "

Colson Whitehead

" 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

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

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

" I didn't know I was a zombie pedant until I started considering what from the zombie canon to keep in 'Zone One' and what to ignore. "

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

" 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

" In America, when you hear about the Underground Railroad, it's so evocative. You think it's a literal subway for a few minutes before your teacher goes on and describes where it actually was. "

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