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" The terror of figuring out a new genre, of telling a new story, is what makes the job exciting, keeps me from getting bored, and I assume it keeps whoever follows my work from getting bored as well. "

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" 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 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. "

" There are good writers and bad writers. It's hard to find writers who really speak to you, but the work is out there. "

" 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. "

" I do write about race a lot, but I don't think writers - of any shade or background or whatever - have to write about certain subjects. "

" I was inspired to become a writer by horror movies and science fiction. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Write what you know. "

" You can't rush inspiration. "

" In college, I wrote maybe three short stories. "

" 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. "

" I've always had a love of cards, ever since I was a little kid. I think poker, as a system, describes the chaos of the world. Our sudden reversals, our freak streaks of fortune. The belief that the next hand can save you, and the inevitable failure of the next hand to save you. I think that describes my world view pretty well. "

" I was sort of a miserable teenager. "

" I'm always trying to switch voices and genres. "

" 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

" In the apocalypse, I think those average, mediocre folks are the ones who are going to live. "

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

Colson Whitehead

Cave

Someone

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

" I try to keep each different book different from the last. So 'Sag Harbor' is very different from 'Apex Hides the Hurt;' 'The Intuitionist,' which is kind of a detective novel, is very different from 'John Henry Days.' I'm just trying to keep things rich for me creatively and for the readers who follow me. "

Colson Whitehead

Trying

Kind

" If you write about race in 1850, you end up talking about race today because in many ways, so little has changed. "

" I admire Vegas's purity, its entirely wholesome artificiality. "

" 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. "

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

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

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

" 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. "

" '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. "

" Growing up devouring horror comics and novels, and being inspired to become a writer because of horror novels, movies, and comic books, I always knew I was going to write a horror novel. "

" 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. "