Colson Whitehead

A monster is a person who has stopped pretending.

— Colson Whitehead

Hipsters seek refuge in church, Our Lady of Perpetual Subculture. There is some discussion as to whether or not they are still…

— Colson Whitehead

When I was a kid, I'd go to the African-American section in the bookstore, and I'd try and find African-American people I…

— Colson Whitehead

I'm someone who just likes being in my cave and thinking up weird stuff.

— Colson Whitehead

“Lieutenant Thomas R. Gilligan, thirty-seven, was off duty and out of uniform, checking out TVs in an electronics store. He went to…

— Colson Whitehead

“I prefer the American spirit, the one that called us from the Old World to the New, to conquer and build and…

— Colson Whitehead

In 'John Henry Days,' I was taking my idea of junketeering and sort of blowing it up to absurd extremes.

— Colson Whitehead

“A firefly blinked into existence, drew half a word in the air. Then gone. A black bug secret in the night. Such…

— Colson Whitehead

A society manufactures the heroes it requires.

— Colson Whitehead

“The whites were right to be afraid. One day the system would collapse in blood. An”

— Colson Whitehead

“one might think one’s misfortunes distinct, but the true horror lay in their universality”

— Colson Whitehead

“Patrol was not difficult work. They stopped any niggers they saw and demanded their passes. They stopped niggers they knew to be…

— Colson Whitehead

“If you want to see what this nation is all about, I always say, you have to ride the rails. Look outside…

— Colson Whitehead

“Tipple sold his success much more effectively than he did. How to get excited about, take pride in something that came so…

— Colson Whitehead

“At intersections and crowded areas between sedans and trucks the gutter reflected the bitter pastels of metropolitan neon, rainbows hacked down to…

— Colson Whitehead

As I get older and write more books I'm definitely allowing the humorous side of my personality more rein in my work.

— Colson Whitehead

“When black blood was money, the savvy businessman knew to open the vein.”

— Colson Whitehead

“He imagined a town called A. Around the communal fire they’re shaping arrowheads and carving tributes o the god of the hunt.…

— Colson Whitehead

“He possessed a strange facility for the mandatory.”

— Colson Whitehead

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…

— Colson Whitehead

“I prefer the American spirit, the one that called us from the Old World to the New, to conquer and build and…

— Colson Whitehead

Access to information, to music or any kind of culture, is getting faster and faster and more streamlined. At each juncture, people…

— Colson Whitehead

“This isn't going to un-fuck itself.”

— Colson Whitehead

I was 7 years old when 'Roots' was first broadcast, and my parents gathered all us kids around the TV to learn…

— Colson Whitehead

If you write about race in 1850, you end up talking about race today because in many ways, so little has changed.

— Colson Whitehead