Colson Whitehead Quotes

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

• Good

If you want to understand America, it's slavery.

• America
• Slavery

I take inspiration from books, movies, television, music - it all goes in the hopper. Depending on the project, I'm drawing from this or that piece of art that has stayed with me. Toni Morrison, George Romero, Sonic Youth - they are all in there.

• Music
• Art
• Inspiration

Anytime an African-American writes an unconventional novel, the writer gets compared to Ellison. But that's O.K. I am working in the African-American literary tradition. That's my aim and what I see as my mission.

• American

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.

• Writing

I do write about race a lot, but I don't think writers - of any shade or background or whatever - have to write about certain subjects.

Monsters are a storytelling tool, like domestic realism and close third.

Schools don't teach American history that well, especially a lot of black American history.

• American
• History
• Black

If you write about race in 1850, you end up talking about race today because in many ways, so little has changed.

• Up
• Today

In fifth grade, we did 10 minutes on slavery and 40 minutes on Abraham Lincoln, and in 10th grade you might do 10 minutes on the civil rights era and 40 minutes on Martin Luther King, and that's it.

• King
• Slavery

Part of being in New York is being able to brag about what used to be there.

Generally, I walk around in a glum mood.

• Mood

I was inspired to become a writer by horror movies and science fiction.

• Science
• Inspired

There's not a lot of good TV.

• Good

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

In America, when you hear about the Underground Railroad, it's so evocative. You think it's a literal subway for a few minutes before your teacher goes on and describes where it actually was.

• America
• Teacher

As always, a lot of bad books will be published. Some good books will be published, and you have to seek them out.

• Good
• Bad

I write at home. I like to be able to take a nap, watch TV, make a sandwich, and if I wake up and don't feel like working, I'm not going to bang my head on my desk all day: I'll go out and do something else.

• Up
• Home

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 never actually went anywhere when I was a journalist. I was a critic, and I just sort of got stuff in the mail and chatted about it.

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

• Important

I enjoy thinking about how race plays out over the centuries, how technology evolves, how cities transform themselves. These subjects are present in some of my books and absent in others.

• Thinking
• Technology
• Present

I was sort of a miserable teenager.

• Teenager

I try to keep each different book different from the last. So 'Sag Harbor' is very different from 'Apex Hides the Hurt;' 'The Intuitionist,' which is kind of a detective novel, is very different from 'John Henry Days.' I'm just trying to keep things rich for me creatively and for the readers who follow me.

• Different
• Trying
• Book