Colson Whitehead Quotes

Quotes about:

• It is failure that guides evolution; perfection provides no incentive for improvement, and nothing is perfect.

  Colson Whitehead

  Failure, Perfect, Incentives

  Colson Whitehead (2012). “The Intuitionist: A Novel”, p.38, Anchor

  36 Copy quote

• A monster is a person who has stopped pretending.

  Colson Whitehead

  Monsters, Pretending, Persons

  "A Psychotronic Childhood" by Colson Whitehead, www.newyorker.com. June 4, 2012.

  47 Copy quote

• As time went on, we learned to arm ourselves in our different ways. Some of us with real guns, some of us with more ephemeral weapons, an idea or improbable plan or some sort of formulation about how best to move through the world. An idea that will let us be. Protect us and keep us safe. But a weapon nonetheless.

  Colson Whitehead

  Real, Moving, Gun

  36 Copy quote

• Most people say, "Show, don't tell," but I stand by Show and Tell, because when writers put their work out into the world, they're like kids bringing their broken unicorns and chewed-up teddy bears into class in the sad hope that someone else will love them as much as they do.

  Colson Whitehead

  Writing, Kids, Class

  24 Copy quote

• You are a New Yorker when what was there before is more real and solid than what is here now.

  Colson Whitehead

  Real, New Yorkers

  Colson Whitehead (2007). “The Colossus of New York”, p.4, Anchor

  26 Copy quote

• What isn't said is as important as what is said.

  Colson Whitehead

  Important, Said

  "How to Write" by Colson Whitehead, www.nytimes.com. July 26, 2012.

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• Memory is the most malicious cutter of all, preserving, recasting, panning in slow motion across the awful bits so that we retain every detail.

  Colson Whitehead

  Memories, Details, Awful

  16 Copy quote

• 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, Independence, Purpose

  Source: www.macleans.ca

  4 Copy quote

• Don’t go searching for a subject, let your subject find you. You can’t rush inspiration. … Once your subject finds you, it’s like falling in love. It will be your constant companion. Shadowing you, peeping in your windows, calling you at all hours to leave messages like, Only you understand me.

  Colson Whitehead

  Falling In Love, Inspiration, Messages

  14 Copy quote

• A society manufactures the heroes it requires.

  Colson Whitehead

  Hero

  5 Copy quote

• We never see other people anyway, only the monsters we make of them.

  Colson Whitehead

  People, Monsters

  Colson Whitehead (2011). “Zone One”, p.214, Random House

  7 Copy quote

• Best to let the broken glass be broken glass, let it splinter into smaller pieces and dust and scatter. Let the cracks between things widen until they are no longer cracks but the new places for things. That was where they were now. The world wasn't ending: it had ended and now they were in the new place. They could not recognize it because they had never seen it before.

  Colson Whitehead

  Glasses, Dust, Broken

  Colson Whitehead (2011). “Zone One”, p.257, Random House

  10 Copy quote

• Sanctimony and self-regard are as American as smallpox blankets and supersize meals.

  Colson Whitehead

  Self, Meals, Blanket

  Colson Whitehead (2014). “The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death”, p.69, Anchor

  7 Copy quote

• There will be no redemption because the men who run this place do not want redemption. They want to be as near to hell as they can.

  Colson Whitehead

  Running, Men, Redemption

  Colson Whitehead (2012). “The Intuitionist: A Novel”, p.240, Anchor

  4 Copy quote

• The city knows you better than any living person because it has seen you when you are alone.

  Colson Whitehead

  Cities, Persons, Knows

  Colson Whitehead (2007). “The Colossus of New York”, p.8, Anchor

  4 Copy quote

• In other words, fiction is payback for those who have wronged you.

  Colson Whitehead

  Payback, Fiction, Wronged

  8 Copy quote

• 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. It meant knowing you are property that could be sold to the highest bidder, of value only to continue to support the plantation economy.

  Colson Whitehead

  Children, Support, Together

  Source: www.oprah.com

  8 Copy quote

• The thing I love about New York is getting lost but not worrying, just wandering and wandering, knowing that there's always a subway only ten blocks away in any direction. There's always a new neighborhood to discover, a new place to lose your bearings in, and yet however alien it seems you can escape. You can always get a cab. All of life's problems can be solved by hailing a cab.

  Colson Whitehead

  Block, Worry, Aliens

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• These days I find myself wanting to avoid being pigeon-holed, ghettoized, held in a different category than other authors. And when people ask me if I'm a black writer, or just a writer who happens to be black, I tend to say that it's either a dumb question or a question which happens to be dumb.

  Colson Whitehead

  People, Dumb, Black

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• I want to keep growing as a writer. I find myself doing unexpected projects and sort of challenging my idea of where I am in my career, or what I'm supposed to be doing. In fact, I'm not supposed to be doing anything. Just finding projects that are challenging to me. I want to be a writer who keeps growing and figuring out new things and hopefully people will follow me along as I publish these things.

  Colson Whitehead

  Careers, Ideas, People

  Source: therumpus.net

  7 Copy quote

• Pain could be killed. Sadness could not, but the drugs did shut its mouth for a time.

  Colson Whitehead

  Pain, Sadness, Drug

  4 Copy quote

• In keeping with my family's affection for doomed product lines and hexed formats, we purchased a Betamax. The year before, we'd bought a TRS-80 instead of an Apple II, and in due course we'd unbox Mattel's Intellivision, instead of Atari's legendary gizmo. This was good training for a writer, for the sooner you accept the fact that you are a deluded idiot who is always out of step with reality the better off you will be.

  Colson Whitehead

  Reality, Apples, Years

  "A Psychotronic Childhood" by Colson Whitehead, www.newyorker.com. June 4, 2012.

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• I think the world's big enough for all kinds of zombies. You can have yours and I can have mine. I think by going with slow zombies I maybe have been asserting my own kind of zombie snobbery, but I don't begrudge the youngsters their tackling, running, jumping zombies.

  Colson Whitehead

  Running, Thinking, Zombie

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

• The fallout from slavery is ongoing. I am not sure the issue of race in America will ever be completely solved.

  Colson Whitehead

  Slavery, Not Sure

  Source: www.macleans.ca

  4 Copy quote

• The only time "early bloomer" has ever been applied to me is vis-a-vis my premature apprehension of the deep dread-of-existence thing. In all other cases, I plod and tromp along. My knuckles? Well dragged.

  Colson Whitehead

  Knuckles, Cases, Existence

  4 Copy quote

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