Colson Whitehead Quotes
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
Quotes to Explore
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I've been writing a lot of poetry recently. It helps me think and work things out.
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You've achieved success in your field when you don't know whether what you're doing is work or play.
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'Yellow Moon' was a poem. My wife at the time, Joel - she's dead now - it was our 25th anniversary. She had the chance to go on a cruise with her sister. And I'm home with the kids and looking up, and I saw the big moon, and I just started writing.
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I taught English and history, so my education for that really helped prepare me for writing historical fiction.
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I like the performing. And interviews, even. And the stuff that's not sitting in a room by yourself with empty paper. But I never loved writing, to tell you the truth.
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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 like writing about biology, not doing it.
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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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I can be collaborative, for instance, in situations where I go and study the artist's work before I start writing. Then I can at least try to write towards their style.
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I have to write what I can write, and writing the text of a picture book is like walking a tightrope, if you ramble off... As my friend Julius Lester says, 'A picture book is the essence of an experience.'
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The writing of the wise are the only riches our posterity cannot squander.
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I love writing. Given a choice, after directing for all these years, and if given an army of talented directors, I would not direct at all.
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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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I like collaboration because, first of all, I'm good at writing lyrics. I don't know how to make beats. I don't play instruments. I'm not a good singer. So even when you see a solo album of mine, it's still a collaboration.
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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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You could take away the singing, and I am fine. But don't take away my gift of writing. It is the best way I can relate and express what I am feeling and what I am going through.
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If it is indeed impossible - or at least very difficult - to inhabit the consciousness of an animal, then in writing about animals there is a temptation to project upon them feelings and thoughts that may belong only to our own human mind and heart.
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Because I find writing painful, I try to get it over with as fast as possible. But I write every day, or I lose the thread.
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I always used to deny this, but I guess what I'm really saying is that I was writing to shock... And I dug deep and dredged up all kinds of vile things which fascinated me at the time.
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You meditate and then you can put on your pajamas, or you can imagine you're wearing your pajamas, and you talk about your piece of writing in the language you would use if you were wearing your pajamas and you were seated at a table with your very good friend. And you wouldn't have to get all dressed up or clean up the table.
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There are a lot of things I suck at. I'm not organized. I have to have partners and people around me who dot my i's and cross my t's. I'm sloppy. I'm a ready-fire-aim guy. I need to have people around me who aren't.
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At school, I would read the City pages before I read the sports pages.
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I have seen faith rise 'mountain high' when the truth of God's present love and compassion begins to dawn upon the minds and hearts of the people. It is not what God can do, but what we know He yearns to do, that inspires faith.
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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
