Colson Whitehead Quotes

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 started writing in the '90s, so I was free to just have an eccentric career and not conform to some idea of what a black writer has to do. I didn't have the burden of representation.

• Writing
• Career
• Free

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

I was always into comic books and horror stories and a huge consumer of pop culture. And then I worked for awhile for 'The Village Voice'.

• Culture

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

• Up
• Today

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

• Interesting

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

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

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

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

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

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

• American
• History
• Black

I was 7 years old when 'Roots' was first broadcast, and my parents gathered all us kids around the TV to learn about how we got here. But it wasn't until I sat down and immersed myself in the research that I got the barest inkling of what it meant to be a slave.

• Kids
• Parents

Some books are well-received with critics; other books sell.

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

• America
• Slavery

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.

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

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

I'm raising kids, and so much of American culture sustains me and gives me things to think about and work on.

• Work
• Kids
• American

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

• Science
• Inspired

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

For me, choosing between fiction and nonfiction is really only about picking the right tool for the job.

• Job

There's not a lot of good TV.

• Good