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" There's always an attack on the sophomore novel from some quarters. "
Colson Whitehead
Always
Some
Sophomore
Related Quotes:
" I'm always trying to switch voices and genres. "
Colson Whitehead
Trying
Voices
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
Me
Follow
" In the 1930s, the government paid writers to interview 80- and 90-year-old former slaves, and I read those accounts. I came away realizing - not surprisingly - that many slave masters were sadists who spent a lot of time thinking up creative ways of hurting people. "
Colson Whitehead
Away
People
Thinking
" I knew that a zombie book would not particularly appeal to some of my previous readers, but it was artistically compelling, and being able to do a short nonfiction book about poker was really fun and great. "
Colson Whitehead
Zombie
Poker
Book
" Write what you know. "
Colson Whitehead
Write
You
Know
" 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
" A lot of my books have started with an abstract premise. "
Colson Whitehead
Premise
Books
Abstract
" I'm someone who just likes being in my cave and thinking up weird stuff. "
Colson Whitehead
Cave
Someone
Up
" Once I got to college, it seemed that the Hamptons were a little bit too posh for me and didn't represent the kind of values I was embracing in my late teens. So, I didn't go out there, except to visit my parents, for a long time. And then, after 9/11, I discovered it was a nice, mellow place to hang out. "
Colson Whitehead
Time
Me
College
" 'Zone One' comes out of me trying to work through some of my ideas about why, for me personally, zombies are scary. "
Colson Whitehead
Me
Trying
Why
" Most of my books have always worked through juxtaposition, jumping through different point of views and time. "
Colson Whitehead
Books
Different
Point
" 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. "
Colson Whitehead
Know
Started
Zombie
" 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. "
Colson Whitehead
Whatever
Write
Lot
" My mom's mother was from Virginia, but I don't feel much of a tie. I'm very much anti-South for many, many reasons. Whenever I go down there, people are always looking at me funny, you know. "
Colson Whitehead
Looking
Funny
Mother
" Monsters are a storytelling tool, like domestic realism and close third. "
Colson Whitehead
Monsters
Realism
Storytelling
" '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 was always into comic books and horror stories and a huge consumer of pop culture. And then I worked for awhile for 'The Village Voice'. "
Colson Whitehead
Horror
Village
Voice
" Each book requires a different kind of treatment and structural gambit. "
Colson Whitehead
Different
Treatment
Each
" 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
Moment
You
Culture
" I'm raising kids, and so much of American culture sustains me and gives me things to think about and work on. "
Colson Whitehead
Me
American
Culture
" I try to have each book be an antidote to the one before. "
Colson Whitehead
Before
Antidote
Each
" 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
Moving
Write
" 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
" I'm not a representative of blackness, and I'm not a healer. "
Colson Whitehead
Representative
Healer
Blackness
" I like questions that tee me up to make weird jokes, frankly. "
Colson Whitehead
Like
Questions
Up
" I use New York to talk about home, but the ideas in 'Colossus' could be transferred to other cities. The story about Central Park is really about the first day of spring in any park. The Coney Island chapter is really about beaches and summer and heat waves. "
Colson Whitehead
Story
New York
Ideas
" 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. "
Colson Whitehead
Men
Meaning
American
" 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
" For me, choosing between fiction and nonfiction is really only about picking the right tool for the job. "
Colson Whitehead
Only
Tool
Right
" The readership for 'Sag Harbor' was different from people who'd read me before - it was linear and realistic, not as strange as 'The Intuitionist.' Did they carry over to 'Zone One,' a story about zombies in New York? Some, some not. I'm used to people not caring about my other books. "
Colson Whitehead
New
People
Caring