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" 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
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" There's always an attack on the sophomore novel from some quarters. "
Colson Whitehead
Always
Some
Sophomore
" The contemporary casino is more than a gambling destination: it is a multifarious pleasure enclosure intended to satisfy every member of the family unit. "
Colson Whitehead
Gambling
Family
Destination
" 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 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
Free
Three
Thinking
" 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
King
You
Civil Rights
" 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'm just trying to keep things rich for me creatively and for the readers who follow me. "
Colson Whitehead
Keep
Trying
Things
" In college, I wrote maybe three short stories. "
Colson Whitehead
Short
Maybe
College
" 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
" 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
" If you go to a big publishing house, editorial aside, it's completely white. "
Colson Whitehead
White
Publishing
Big
" 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 like to know how I'm supposed to feel about things. Just a little clue or hint. "
Colson Whitehead
Like
Just
Feel
" I'm not a representative of blackness, and I'm not a healer. "
Colson Whitehead
Representative
Healer
Blackness
" 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
" Write what you know. "
Colson Whitehead
Write
You
Know
" 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 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
" 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
" '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've always thought the Nat Turner story to be very interesting. "
Colson Whitehead
Interesting
Always
Thought
" '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
" I envied kids who played soccer and football, but that was not my gig. "
Colson Whitehead
Played
Kids
Gig
" There are good writers and bad writers. It's hard to find writers who really speak to you, but the work is out there. "
Colson Whitehead
Bad
Find
Good
" 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 was sort of a miserable teenager. "
Colson Whitehead
Miserable
Sort
Teenager
" I am not sure the issue of race in America will ever be completely solved. "
Colson Whitehead
I Am
Race
Sure
" 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 someone who just likes being in my cave and thinking up weird stuff. "
Colson Whitehead
Cave
Someone
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