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" 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
Related Quotes:
" Each book requires a different kind of treatment and structural gambit. "
Colson Whitehead
Different
Treatment
Each
" 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
Think
View
World
" 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. "
Colson Whitehead
Best
Small
Nature
" 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
" 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
Up
Black
" There's always an attack on the sophomore novel from some quarters. "
Colson Whitehead
Always
Some
Sophomore
" 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
Work
Me
Follow
" I try to keep each different book different from the last. So 'Sag Harbor' is very different from 'Apex Hides the Hurt;' 'The Intuitionist,' which is kind of a detective novel, is very different from 'John Henry Days.' I'm just trying to keep things rich for me creatively and for the readers who follow me. "
Colson Whitehead
Trying
Kind
Me
" 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
" I'm always trying to switch voices and genres. "
Colson Whitehead
Trying
Voices
Genres
" 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
" Schools don't teach American history that well, especially a lot of black American history. "
Colson Whitehead
American
Well
Teach
" I'm not a teacher; I'm not a historian. I'm trying to create a world for my characters. "
Colson Whitehead
Create
World
Trying
" 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
Moment
You
Culture
" 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
Brother
Friday
Movies
" '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
Railroad
Believe
Place
" 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
" 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
" In the apocalypse, I think those average, mediocre folks are the ones who are going to live. "
Colson Whitehead
Average
Those
Who
" 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
" I wanted to be one of these multidisciplinary critics who is doing music one day, TV the next, and books the next. "
Colson Whitehead
Next
Books
Day
" I like questions that tee me up to make weird jokes, frankly. "
Colson Whitehead
Like
Questions
Up
" For me, the terror of the zombie is that at any moment, your friend, your family, you neighbor, your teacher, the guy at the bodega down the street, can be revealed as the monster they've always been. "
Colson Whitehead
You
Family
Friend
" You can't rush inspiration. "
Colson Whitehead
You
Rush
Inspiration
" 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. "
Colson Whitehead
Zombie
Poker
Book
" I envied kids who played soccer and football, but that was not my gig. "
Colson Whitehead
Played
Kids
Gig
" 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
System
Brutal
How
" The movie 'Rock 'n' Roll High School' was a sacred text in my household. "
Colson Whitehead
High School
Rock
School
" In college, I wrote maybe three short stories. "
Colson Whitehead
Short
Maybe
College
" 'Zone One' comes out of me trying to work through some of my ideas about why, for me personally, zombies are scary. "
Colson Whitehead
Me
Trying
Why