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" I'm raising kids, and so much of American culture sustains me and gives me things to think about and work on. "
Colson Whitehead
Me
American
Culture
Related Quotes:
" I envied kids who played soccer and football, but that was not my gig. "
Colson Whitehead
Played
Kids
Gig
" 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
Book
Rules
Place
" 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
Know
Started
Zombie
" 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
" You can raze the old buildings and erect magnificent corporate towers, hose down Port Authority, but you can't change people. "
Colson Whitehead
Down
People
Authority
" 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
" 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
" Monsters are a storytelling tool, like domestic realism and close third. "
Colson Whitehead
Monsters
Realism
Storytelling
" 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
Time
Me
College
" 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
Railroad
You
America
" In college, I wrote maybe three short stories. "
Colson Whitehead
Short
Maybe
College
" I'm not a representative of blackness, and I'm not a healer. "
Colson Whitehead
Representative
Healer
Blackness
" Schools don't teach American history that well, especially a lot of black American history. "
Colson Whitehead
American
Well
Teach
" I like questions that tee me up to make weird jokes, frankly. "
Colson Whitehead
Like
Questions
Up
" 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 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
Free
Black
Writing
" It's always hard to write and get your words out there, to find an editor, a publisher - readers! - who are going to appreciate them. "
Colson Whitehead
Words
Find
Always
" '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
" 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
" The readership for 'Sag Harbor' was different from people who'd read me before - it was linear and realistic, not as strange as 'The Intuitionist.' Did they carry over to 'Zone One,' a story about zombies in New York? Some, some not. I'm used to people not caring about my other books. "
Colson Whitehead
New
People
Caring
" '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
" 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
" 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
" Some books are well-received with critics; other books sell. "
Colson Whitehead
Sell
Books
Critics
" I was sort of a miserable teenager. "
Colson Whitehead
Miserable
Sort
Teenager
" 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
" 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
Me
" I'm always trying to switch voices and genres. "
Colson Whitehead
Trying
Voices
Genres
" 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
Writing
Black
Book
" 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
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