Colson Whitehead Quotes

Usually, when I write a novel, it takes me about 100 pages to figure out the voice of the narrator.

In '82 and '83, that was the rise of the VCR. Every Friday, my brother and I would go to Crazy Eddie's - which was a video store in Manhattan - and rent five horror movies. And that's basically what we did, basically, for three years. Becoming social misfits.

• Crazy
• Brother
• Friday

I admire Vegas's purity, its entirely wholesome artificiality.

• Vegas

What isn't said is as important as what is said.

• Important

I live in Brooklyn. I moved here 14 years ago for the cheap rent. It was a little embarrassing because I was raised in Manhattan, and so I was a bit of a snob about the other boroughs.

• Live

I don't generally follow sports. At an early age, I discovered that nature had apportioned me only a small reserve of enthusiasm. Best to ration.

• Nature
• Age
• Small

I have a good poker face because I am half-dead inside.

• Good

Some people don't like my fiction, because they prefer the nonfiction. But moving around keeps the work fresh for me and, hopefully, for my one or two readers who follow me from book to book!

• People
• Work
• Book

Other people have hang-ups about what's literary or genre or whatever, and that's sort of not my problem. You're supposed to write what you have to write, and you're supposed to keep moving.

• People
• Moving

In the apocalypse, I think those average, mediocre folks are the ones who are going to live.

• Live

When I'm working on a book, I try to do eight pages a week. That seems like a good amount. Less than that, I'm not getting a nice momentum, and more than that, I'm probably putting out too much crap.

• Good
• Book
• Nice

Once I got to college, it seemed that the Hamptons were a little bit too posh for me and didn't represent the kind of values I was embracing in my late teens. So, I didn't go out there, except to visit my parents, for a long time. And then, after 9/11, I discovered it was a nice, mellow place to hang out.

• Time
• Long
• Parents

I didn't know I was a zombie pedant until I started considering what from the zombie canon to keep in 'Zone One' and what to ignore.

• Ignore

I was allowed to write about race using an elevator metaphor because of Toni Morrison and David Bradley and Ralph Ellison. Hopefully, me being weird allows someone who's 16 and wanting to write inspires them to have their own weird take on the world, and they can see the different kinds of African American voices being published.

• World
• Different
• American

'Sag Harbor' was a very different book for me. It changed the way I thought about books that I wanted to do.

• Different
• Book

I wanted to be one of these multidisciplinary critics who is doing music one day, TV the next, and books the next.

• Music

I've always had a love of cards, ever since I was a little kid. I think poker, as a system, describes the chaos of the world. Our sudden reversals, our freak streaks of fortune. The belief that the next hand can save you, and the inevitable failure of the next hand to save you. I think that describes my world view pretty well.

• World
• Pretty
• Hand

The movie 'Rock 'n' Roll High School' was a sacred text in my household.

• School
• Movie
• High

Write what you know.

I'm always trying to switch voices and genres.

• Trying

It's always hard to write and get your words out there, to find an editor, a publisher - readers! - who are going to appreciate them.

• Words

I've always thought the Nat Turner story to be very interesting.

• Interesting

In the 1930s, the government paid writers to interview 80- and 90-year-old former slaves, and I read those accounts. I came away realizing - not surprisingly - that many slave masters were sadists who spent a lot of time thinking up creative ways of hurting people.

• People
• Up
• Time

I like questions that tee me up to make weird jokes, frankly.

• Up
• Weird