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" Most of my books have always worked through juxtaposition, jumping through different point of views and time. "

Colson Whitehead

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

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. "

Colson Whitehead

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

Colson Whitehead

" 'Zone One' comes out of me trying to work through some of my ideas about why, for me personally, zombies are scary. "

Colson Whitehead

" 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

" 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

" You can raze the old buildings and erect magnificent corporate towers, hose down Port Authority, but you can't change people. "

Colson Whitehead

" In fifth grade, we did 10 minutes on slavery and 40 minutes on Abraham Lincoln, and in 10th grade you might do 10 minutes on the civil rights era and 40 minutes on Martin Luther King, and that's it. "

Colson Whitehead

" People don't like it when you compare the miracle of childbirth to writing a book, but I think there is some overlap in the two because they are both pure agony. "

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

" 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

" 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

" I'm not a representative of blackness, and I'm not a healer. "

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

" I usually have two or three ideas floating around. When I have free time, the one I end up thinking most about is the one I end up pursuing. "

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

" 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

" I grew up reading the 'Village Voice' and wanting to be one of these multidisciplinary music writers, film writers, book writers. And I lucked out getting a job at the 'Voice' right after college. "

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

" 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

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

Colson Whitehead

" I'm someone who just likes being in my cave and thinking up weird stuff. "

Colson Whitehead

" What isn't said is as important as what is said. "

Colson Whitehead

" '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

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

Colson Whitehead

" For me, choosing between fiction and nonfiction is really only about picking the right tool for the job. "

Colson Whitehead

" 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