Colson Whitehead Quotes
I wrote a book of essays about New York called 'The Colossus of New York,' but it's not about - you know, when I'm writing about rush hour or Central Park, it's not a black Central Park, it's just Central Park, and it's not a black rush hour, it's just rush hour.Colson Whitehead
Quotes to Explore
-
When I was around eight, I learned how to touch-type at school, and I received a computer as a present. I started writing plays, and for many years I thought I would be a playwright.
-
We're more interested in someone writing a really great answer that's going to be read by thousands or tens of thousands of people over the next few years as it stays on Quora and as it gets distributed on the Internet.
-
I think that the idea that I'm writing for many more people than I ever imagined has created a certain general responsibility that is literary and political. There's even pride involved, in not wanting to fall short of what I did before.
-
When the women's movement began, it was a middle-class phenomenon. Certainly, black women had other stuff to think about in the '60s besides a women's movement. Working-class women were slow to get into it.
-
Historical fiction is actually good preparation for reading SF. Both the historical novelist and the science fiction writer are writing about worlds unlike our own.
-
My highest point was the first thing I won, a short story competition in a women's magazine in the Eighties. It was the first time I'd had my writing validated, and the first thing I'd ever shown anyone else.
-
I've been writing for a long time. I sat down to write my first novel in the middle of March of 1982.
-
Writing about a person whose struggle you wish you could solve is an act of compassion and also, frankly, opportunism.
-
There are ogres and black beasts out there; you have to be constantly on guard.
-
I don't think I'd ever make an album of just covers because I love writing my own music.
-
Personal relationships are usually my biggest inspirations for writing my songs. The best way for me to write a song is to visualise the story in my head, and I start humming a melody, and before you know it, a song is born.
-
It's easier to release an ebook than a print book.
-
I am truly at my happiest not when I am writing an aria for an actor or making a grand political or social point. I am at my happiest when I've figured out a fun way for somebody to slip on a banana peel.
-
Writing is a solitary journey, so I am always excited to go out on book tour and meet readers one-on-one.
-
I'm quite adept at writing two or sometimes even three stories at once. So if I get stuck on one story, I switch the next and let my subconscious work on unraveling any plot problems from another story.
-
I wrote a script with my brother which ended up, somehow, on the Black List in 2008.
-
Writing is a creative process, and you need to have the doors and windows of your mind open so that you have the possibility of change.
-
You have to capitalise on any success you have and keep doing what you do as well as you can. But how do you define success? In my book, it's to be playing those parts you saw your idols - Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Helen Mirren, Vanessa Redgrave - playing when they were the age you are now.
-
If you're writing a detective novel or horror or sci-fi, you want to expand or reinvigorate the genre in your own little way.
Colson Whitehead -
I don't have makeup on all the time, but when I want, I have fun with my friends choosing clothes and putting nail polish on.
-
When we started OD2 in 1999, we were really expecting to work more with independents and so on because the major labels were spending millions on their own Pressplay and equivalents online, which haven't been very successful.
-
I wrote a book of essays about New York called 'The Colossus of New York,' but it's not about - you know, when I'm writing about rush hour or Central Park, it's not a black Central Park, it's just Central Park, and it's not a black rush hour, it's just rush hour.
Colson Whitehead
