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" 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

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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. "

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

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" Write what you know. "

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" I'm of that subset of native New Yorkers who can't drive. "

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" 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. "

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" 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. "

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" I think a joke is a form of truth-telling. A good joke that's absurd contains elements of our daily darkness and also a possibility to escape that darkness. So, for me, humor is an attempt to capture everyday tragedy and everyday hopeful moments that we experience all of the time. "

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" There's not a lot of good TV. "

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" 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. "

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" 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. "

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" 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. "

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

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" Some books are well-received with critics; other books sell. "

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

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" I live in Brooklyn. I moved here 14 years ago for the cheap rent. It was a little embarrassing because I was raised in Manhattan, and so I was a bit of a snob about the other boroughs. "

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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. "

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" You can't rush inspiration. "

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

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" Usually, when I write a novel, it takes me about 100 pages to figure out the voice of the narrator. "

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" Monsters are a storytelling tool, like domestic realism and close third. "

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

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

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" 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. "

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

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

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" I am not sure the issue of race in America will ever be completely solved. "

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" I love getting out of the Q train at Union Square. It's such a mix of people, like a party. There's always an errand you can do along there, whether it's picking up contacts or buying poker chips. "

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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 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. "

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" A lot of early Misfits song titles are inspired by old B-movies, which were my Popeye's spinach when I was a kid. "

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