I think being a writer was a crappy job when you just had typewriters. It was crappy when we just had ink… — Colson Whitehead Copy Share Image
I always have a few ideas that are percolating, and then after I've finished a book and it's a year later, and… — Colson Whitehead Copy Share Image
I think the world's big enough for all kinds of zombies. You can have yours and I can have mine. I think… — Colson Whitehead Copy Share Image
In the 1930s, the government paid writers to interview 80- and 90-year-old former slaves, and I read those accounts. I came away… — Colson Whitehead Copy Share Image
I'm someone who just likes being in my cave and thinking up weird stuff. — Colson Whitehead Copy Share Image
A lot of people, when they first hear about the Underground Railroad, think it really is a subway or a locomotive. When… — Colson Whitehead Copy Share Image
His legs remembered the correct position for squatting down with toys. He played. He fit the round male studs into the round… — Colson Whitehead Copy Share Image
I think you're only post-racial when you stop asking if you're post-racial. When the Neanderthals finally stopped asking themselves if they were… — Colson Whitehead Copy Share Image
I can't say that you should extract this or that value from my books explicitly. They are up for interpretation. In terms… — Colson Whitehead Copy Share Image
I write books and either people read them or they don't read them. The rise of Facebook or e-books doesn't change the… — Colson Whitehead Copy Share Image
I enjoy thinking about how race plays out over the centuries, how technology evolves, how cities transform themselves. These subjects are present… — Colson Whitehead Copy Share Image
I usually have two or three ideas floating around. When I have free time, the one I end up thinking most about… — Colson Whitehead Copy Share Image
I think each book has its own way of accommodating my concerns, whether it's about race, America, technology, the city. — 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
