Colson Whitehead Quotes
Part of any book is establishing the rules at the end of the world. My first book, 'The Intuitionist,' takes place in an alternative world where elevator inspectors are important, so you have to establish rules, and part of that is, How do people talk? How do they behave?Colson Whitehead
Quotes to Explore
-
Sometimes a role might be difficult on my throat.
-
In 1958, my father invested everything he had in a business venture and became the largest automobile dealership in Chicago for Ford's new Edsel line. But Edsel sales plummeted and my father fell into bankruptcy. I watched him struggle; working long hours to protect us from poverty.
-
Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.
-
I've been disappointed by so many movie stars that I've seen, and they go out and they don't do it up, you know. And they don't - I just get so disappointed.
-
It is my fate and perhaps my temperament to sign agreements with fools.
-
I think there is some truth to the fact that yeah, okay, cool, obviously the more mainstream kind of easier-to-grasp-onto dance music has become popular, but that holds true with almost any genre. It wasn't like the Sex Pistols hit the radio. It was poppier versions of that is what hit. It's never, like, the true core stuff.
-
A man will turn over half a library to make one book.
-
When I watch Rumble Johnson, he's a bully. He bullies guys. He makes them go backward, and he traps them. I'm not going to allow that. If he tries to bully me, I'll stand right in front of him, and if he hits me, I'll hit him right back. And then we'll see how the bully handles it when nobody is going to run away from him.
-
You just have to enjoy what you're doing. You just never know how people are going to receive it.
-
When decorum is repression, the only dignity free men have is to speak out.
-
I just respect Kanye as an artist.
-
My mom was Jewish, so some would call me Jewish.
-
There's no way that a third party wins without being in the presidential debates. I think the vast majority of Americans are Libertarian; they just don't know it.
-
I do two months of strict dieting, so after fight night, I go for whatever my body is craving. It's usually sushi. But after that, I go home to Guadalajara and indulge in a lot of tacos before I have to start getting in shape for another fight.
-
The People's Republic of China has not yet reached the military might of the Soviet Empire. It requires a little more time and a little more infusion of Western aid, loans, technology and the hard currency of our tourists.
-
Your initial idea may or may not work, but you have to remember that a failed idea is nothing but a stepping stone to a bigger success.
-
I'll admit that I do quite like drinks that come in coconut shells. So there's always that.
-
With fandom, people are sensitive, and sometimes defensive, about their experiences.
-
The popular, and one may say naive, idea is that peace can be secured by disarmament and that disarmament must therefore precede the attainment of absolute security and lasting peace.
-
I have a position of indirect respect and oblique power.
-
I never knew how soothing trees are-many trees and patches of open sunlight, and tree presences; it is almost like having another being.
-
The world does not look to us in the Arab world out of a healthy desire for knowledge.
-
So, as opposed to getting people in to read the script and read scenes with me, what I wanted to do was sit down and chat to these people and just say, "Okay. Do you share my sense of humor? Do you understand what this film is getting at? Do you know the tone that we're trying to get to?" And it was interesting.
-
Part of any book is establishing the rules at the end of the world. My first book, 'The Intuitionist,' takes place in an alternative world where elevator inspectors are important, so you have to establish rules, and part of that is, How do people talk? How do they behave?
Colson Whitehead