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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I've been writing for a long time. I sat down to write my first novel in the middle of March of 1982.
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Writing about a person whose struggle you wish you could solve is an act of compassion and also, frankly, opportunism.
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There are ogres and black beasts out there; you have to be constantly on guard.
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I don't think I'd ever make an album of just covers because I love writing my own music.
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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.
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It's easier to release an ebook than a print book.
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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.
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Writing is a solitary journey, so I am always excited to go out on book tour and meet readers one-on-one.
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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.
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I wrote a script with my brother which ended up, somehow, on the Black List in 2008.
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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.
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I sense very little appetite for green efforts to persuade people to accept a frozen or declining standard of living for the sake of the environment. Recessions remind us that economic retreat or stagnation is painful, whatever the goal.
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There is no doubt that online shopping has fed the craze for speed, because when you can't touch the fabric or try on the outfit, the only emotion you experience is the excitement of the purchase and the thrill of beating everyone else to it.
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When you wash your hands, when you make a cup of coffee, when you're waiting for the elevator - instead of indulging in thinking, these are all opportunities for being there as a still, alert presence.
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I was a paperboy first, then I worked at a movie theater. But I was a caddie at a golf club, which I didn't like. The people were so bougie and racist at times.
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When somebody has convinced you that you're not worth anything to anybody anymore, and they spend a lot of time doing it, you start believing it yourself.
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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
