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" 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

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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. "

Colson Whitehead

" 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

" 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

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

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

" In 'John Henry Days,' I was taking my idea of junketeering and sort of blowing it up to absurd extremes. "

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

" You can't rush inspiration. "

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

" 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

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

Colson Whitehead

" I like to know how I'm supposed to feel about things. Just a little clue or hint. "

Colson Whitehead

" I'm raising kids, and so much of American culture sustains me and gives me things to think about and work on. "

Colson Whitehead

" If you go to a big publishing house, editorial aside, it's completely white. "

Colson Whitehead

" I wanted to be one of these multidisciplinary critics who is doing music one day, TV the next, and books the next. "

Colson Whitehead

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

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 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

" 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

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

Colson Whitehead

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

Colson Whitehead

" In the 1930s, the government paid writers to interview 80- and 90-year-old former slaves, and I read those accounts. I came away realizing - not surprisingly - that many slave masters were sadists who spent a lot of time thinking up creative ways of hurting people. "

Colson Whitehead

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

Colson Whitehead

" Each book requires a different kind of treatment and structural gambit. "

Colson Whitehead

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

Colson Whitehead

" Zombies are a great rhetorical prop to talk about people and paranoia, and they are a good vehicle for my misanthropy. "

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

" 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

" I've always thought the Nat Turner story to be very interesting. "

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