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" I'm not a representative of blackness, and I'm not a healer. "
Colson Whitehead
Representative
Healer
Blackness
Related Quotes:
" 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
" 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
Me
Art
Drawing
" Being a slave meant never having the stability of knowing your family would be together as many years as God designed it to be. It meant you could come back from picking cotton in a field to find that your children are gone, your husband's gone, your mother's gone. "
Colson Whitehead
Together
Children
Family
" I have a good poker face because I am half-dead inside. "
Colson Whitehead
Inside
Poker
I Am
" 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
Mission
Aim
See
" 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
Men
Meaning
American
" Access to information, to music or any kind of culture, is getting faster and faster and more streamlined. At each juncture, people are thrown into tumult and have to adapt or die. "
Colson Whitehead
Information
Culture
People
" Zombies are a great rhetorical prop to talk about people and paranoia, and they are a good vehicle for my misanthropy. "
Colson Whitehead
Good
Paranoia
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. "
Colson Whitehead
Race
Ideas
Feel
" In the apocalypse, I think those average, mediocre folks are the ones who are going to live. "
Colson Whitehead
Average
Those
Who
" As always, a lot of bad books will be published. Some good books will be published, and you have to seek them out. "
Colson Whitehead
Good
Always
Bad
" '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
Started
First
Finish
" Stephen King in general, as well as films of the apocalypse from the '70s, had a big influence on 'Zone One.' "
Colson Whitehead
Big
King
General
" 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
" 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
" Usually, when I write a novel, it takes me about 100 pages to figure out the voice of the narrator. "
Colson Whitehead
Me
Write
Voice
" There's always an attack on the sophomore novel from some quarters. "
Colson Whitehead
Always
Some
Sophomore
" I like to know how I'm supposed to feel about things. Just a little clue or hint. "
Colson Whitehead
Like
Just
Feel
" 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
" I try to have each book be an antidote to the one before. "
Colson Whitehead
Before
Antidote
Each
" 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
Children
History
Home
" I've always thought the Nat Turner story to be very interesting. "
Colson Whitehead
Interesting
Always
Thought
" Monsters are a storytelling tool, like domestic realism and close third. "
Colson Whitehead
Monsters
Realism
Storytelling
" Schools don't teach American history that well, especially a lot of black American history. "
Colson Whitehead
American
Well
Teach
" I'm someone who just likes being in my cave and thinking up weird stuff. "
Colson Whitehead
Cave
Someone
Up
" 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
Die
Us
Stand
" Each book requires a different kind of treatment and structural gambit. "
Colson Whitehead
Different
Treatment
Each
" I write at home. I like to be able to take a nap, watch TV, make a sandwich, and if I wake up and don't feel like working, I'm not going to bang my head on my desk all day: I'll go out and do something else. "
Colson Whitehead
Watch
Home
Nap
" A lot of my writer friends live near me, and that makes people think we just hang around with one another in cafes, trading work and discussing 'Harper's' and what not. But I rarely see them. We're home working. "
Colson Whitehead
Work
Think
Home
" 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