Colson Whitehead Quotes
The terror of figuring out a new genre, of telling a new story, is what makes the job exciting, keeps me from getting bored, and I assume it keeps whoever follows my work from getting bored as well.Colson Whitehead
Quotes to Explore
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The biggest issue that we have to contend with is campaign finance reform.
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I need to feel as if everything is clean and in its proper place before I can even attempt to write one word. At least, that's what I tell myself. I make the bed, I put away the dishes, maybe I dust, maybe I do the laundry, maybe I go to the post office.
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Natural selection, as it has operated in human history, favors not only the clever but the murderous.
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How do you play 'righteous'? Do you just kind of stand up straighter? What does that mean as an actor? You don't really play a quality.
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It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive.
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My parents were both entrepreneurs.
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I studied the lives of jazz singers who would tour Europe, and... what I learned was life was big ride for them. They'd seen the dark side of humanity... but touring the world playing jazz, it was a truly carefree way of living. A great escapism, if you like.
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We are not angels, we are merely sophisticated apes. Yet we feel like angels trapped inside the bodies of beasts, craving transcendence and all the time trying to spread our wings and fly off, and it's really a very odd predicament to be in, if you think about it.
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Free societies are societies in motion, and with motion comes friction.
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It's different for every project. Some parts are quicker than others to get and know; sometimes right up until the last moment you're just praying that something will click. But you can only do a certain amount of work and then at some point you've got to think: 'OK, I'm just going to have to leap now.'
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I hope that none of the countries in the Middle East are planning anything but the peaceful utilization of nuclear energy.
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I do my best work if I think about what it is I have to offer.
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Thou shalt free thyself from convention, from everyday morality.
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If I'm saying a universal truth, but maybe it's something that people don't feel comfortable saying... It's a strange take, but at the same time, what you're hitting on is kind of right. You can relate. That's the heart of comedy. You have to have a point of view. You gotta commit. And the more you commit to it, sometimes the funnier it gets.
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And a third thing is the understanding of the Church as a community, a communion which is just a hierarchy but the people of God, whose servants are the priests and bishops.
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Obama is a great man who's just beginning to understand the realities. And I'm not just saying that because he reads my books. I would have voted for him anyway.
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My first gig was a Corn Pops commercial. I did the first Vanilla Coke campaign. A Juicy Fruit commercial paid my bills for years.
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I always wanted to be an actress. It's been very high up on my list of passions, and I did a couple of short courses, and I've studied at school.
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There's not one thing that inspires me the most. Me and my friends joke around with each other and hang out so much that whatever makes us laugh really hard makes it into 'Workaholics.' But the characters that I think are funny are guys that are confidently stupid.
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The true adventurer goes forth aimless and uncalculating to meet and greet unknown fate.
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I'm not as soft or as generous a person as I would be if the world hadn't changed me.
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My cousin Georgia says that boys are like gazelles. She says the get alarmed when they get close to girls. And they have to leap off into the woods like gazelles in trousers. Or have I just made that up?
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My goal was always to be working on the biggest stage in the world: Hollywood. Even when I was doing 'The Bill,' I approached the work like it was a Hollywood classic such as 'Training Day' or 'Boyz n the Hood.' So to have worked with some of the greats I've admired, such as Forest Whitaker, Kathy Bates, Cuba Gooding Jr., etc., it warms me.
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The terror of figuring out a new genre, of telling a new story, is what makes the job exciting, keeps me from getting bored, and I assume it keeps whoever follows my work from getting bored as well.
Colson Whitehead
