Colson Whitehead Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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Failure is success if we learn from it.
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I have a song about being in love. I have a song about being supportive. There's inspiring ones, and there's some that show a little bit more fun and daring. It really is a range of who I am.
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Movies are usually difficult, often insane, constantly challenging and always strangely amusing to make.
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I got a telegraph from my mother who said that my step-father had had a heart attack, come home and earn a living. So I went back to England and the only thing I knew to earn any cash was through hairdressing.
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The American people need to tell their member of Congress that we need a strong defense to protect us and to prevent wars. We can't get away with simply leading from behind and gutting our defenses.
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I've always loved writing, and the impulse for me is storytelling. I don't sit down and think: 'What political message can I sell?' I love the creativity of it.
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There are moments when I can't believe I'm as old as I am. But I feel better physically than I did 10 years ago. I don't think, Oh God, I'm missing something.
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Getting your writing criticized can be a lot like getting skinned, and you respond to it just as enthusiastically.
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Imagine trying to be a gay actor, a gay anything in modern Russia? Where to be positively oneself, to be affectionate in public with someone you love of the same gender, or to talk of that love in the hearing of anyone under 18, will put you prison?
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In 2009, I served as AARP's Ambassador of Caregiving. With a producer and cameraman, I traveled the country for months, interviewing hundreds of caregivers.
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I had this little Bon Iver phase a few years back; 'Flume' was one of my favourite songs.
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I can remember loving to recruit. I knew I was going to do my best. But traveling and recruiting doesn't appeal to me any more. It's not as much fun as it used to be.
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I don't understand why there aren't more powerful female directors. I don't have the answers, but I hope that things may start to shift and that studios will employ more women to handle strong and interesting material.
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It's hard to think of any tool, any instrument, any object in history with which so many developed so close a relationship so quickly as we have with our phones.
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The most common criticism I've seen is that I write 'popcorn fantasy:' lightweight action-adventure. Some people call it that as they explain why they love it for exactly that reason. I'm cool with that, either way. I just nod and let it go.
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I always knew I wanted to be a technologist, so I went to Duke and got a degree in computer science and electrical engineering. Really, I thought my goal in life was to be an inventor, a problem solver, so I thought I needed a Ph.D. to be good at inventions, but it turns out that you don't.
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I still feel I need to do things 10 times better than other players. Just to be accepted and to improve myself.
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Gossip is what you say about the objects of flattery when they aren't present.
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We did 300 shows in our first two years.
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I dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; then I awoke. Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?
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Circumstances have rarely favored great men. A lowly beginning is no bar to a great career. The boy who works his way through college may have a hard time of it, but he will learn how to work his way in life, and will usually take higher rank in school and in after life than his classmate who is the son of a millionaire.
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When you write songs, you're writing little bits here, little bits there.
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You can't help but just be aware that things might not always be as good as they are, because people's feelings about others can turn on a dime.
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In college, I wrote maybe three short stories.
Colson Whitehead
