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" 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
Work
Me
Follow
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" I was 7 years old when 'Roots' was first broadcast, and my parents gathered all us kids around the TV to learn about how we got here. But it wasn't until I sat down and immersed myself in the research that I got the barest inkling of what it meant to be a slave. "
Colson Whitehead
Research
Myself
Parents
" 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
" Generally, I walk around in a glum mood. "
Colson Whitehead
Generally
Walk
Around
" 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
Brother
Friday
Movies
" 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
" Monsters are a storytelling tool, like domestic realism and close third. "
Colson Whitehead
Monsters
Realism
Storytelling
" 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
" 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
" For me, the terror of the zombie is that at any moment, your friend, your family, you neighbor, your teacher, the guy at the bodega down the street, can be revealed as the monster they've always been. "
Colson Whitehead
You
Family
Friend
" I like questions that tee me up to make weird jokes, frankly. "
Colson Whitehead
Like
Questions
Up
" I'm always trying to switch voices and genres. "
Colson Whitehead
Trying
Voices
Genres
" 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 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
" There's always an attack on the sophomore novel from some quarters. "
Colson Whitehead
Always
Some
Sophomore
" I'm of that subset of native New Yorkers who can't drive. "
Colson Whitehead
New
Native
New Yorkers
" In college, I wrote maybe three short stories. "
Colson Whitehead
Short
Maybe
College
" '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
" 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
" 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
" 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 was inspired to become a writer by horror movies and science fiction. "
Colson Whitehead
Horror
Movies
Science
" 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
" The movie 'Rock 'n' Roll High School' was a sacred text in my household. "
Colson Whitehead
High School
Rock
School
" 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 the apocalypse, I think those average, mediocre folks are the ones who are going to live. "
Colson Whitehead
Average
Those
Who
" 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
Vague
Sense
Eternity
" 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
Way
Horror
Own
" 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
" 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
" If the world's nations can set aside their petty bickering over religion, politics, and territory, certainly I can 'get that Olympic Spirit' and rise above my prejudices. "
Colson Whitehead
World
Rise Above
Religion