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… — Colson Whitehead Copy Share Image
“Freedom was a thing that shifted as you looked at it, the way a forest is dense with the trees up close but from the outside, from the empty meadow, you see its true limits. Being free had nothing to… — Colson Whitehead Copy Share Image
I'd never been much of an athlete, due to a physical condition I'd had since birth (unathleticism). Perhaps if there were a sport centered… — Colson Whitehead Copy Share Image
I want to keep growing as a writer. I find myself doing unexpected projects and sort of challenging my idea of where I am… — Colson Whitehead Copy Share Image
“Every Tuesday, James Fulton (and later, Orville Lever) stood in the downstairs drawing room and lectured on the intricacies of his science. Lectured on… — Colson Whitehead Copy Share Image
I started writing in the '90s, so I was free to just have an eccentric career and not conform to some idea of what… — Colson Whitehead Copy Share Image
“The Great War had always been between the white and the black. It always would be. Cora” — Colson Whitehead Copy Share Image
“The worst sort of scoundrels took up the chase. Drunkards, incorrigibles, poor whites who didn’t even own shoes delighted in this opportunity to scourge… — Colson Whitehead Copy Share Image
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… — Colson Whitehead Copy Share Image
“its terms? Homer watched her as she dressed, like a valet who had waited on her since the cradle. “I’m caught,” Cora said. “You… — Colson Whitehead Copy Share Image
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… — Colson Whitehead Copy Share Image
Part of any book is establishing the rules at the end of the world. My first book, 'The Intuitionist,' takes place in an alternative… — Colson Whitehead Copy Share Image
There's always an attack on the sophomore novel from some quarters. — Colson Whitehead Copy Share Image
“All he felt now was envy. These people had expectations. Of the world, of the future, it didn't matter--expectation was such an innovative concept… — Colson Whitehead Copy Share Image
Growing up as a product of the black civil-rights movement, I had a lot of different models for black weirdness, whether it's Richard Pryor… — Colson Whitehead Copy Share Image
Schools don't teach American history that well, especially a lot of black American history. — Colson Whitehead Copy Share Image
