For years I felt that I wasn't ready to take on slavery. It's a huge topic, and I didn't want to mess it up. Colson Whitehead More Quotes by Colson Whitehead More Quotes From Colson Whitehead When I was a kid, I'd go to the African-American section in the bookstore, and I'd try and find African-American people I hadn't read before. So in that sense the category was useful to me. But it's not useful to me as I write. I don't sit down to write an African-American zombie story or an African-American story about elevators. I'm writing a story about elevators which happens to talk about race in different ways. Or I'm writing a zombie novel which doesn't have that much to do with being black in America. That novel is really about survival. Colson Whitehead writingkidspeople Isn't it great when you're a kid and the world is full of anonymous things? Everything is bright and mysterious until you know what it is called and then all the light goes out of it...Once we knew the name of it, how could we ever come to love it?...For things had true natures, and they hid behind false names, beneath the skin we gave them. Colson Whitehead lightnameskids I always have a few ideas that are percolating, and then after I've finished a book and it's a year later, and things are sort of festering and things are disgusting in my house and I have to get back to work, whatever project I keep thinking about is the one I end up working on. Sort of a very simple process of elimination. Colson Whitehead simplebookthinking The only time "early bloomer" has ever been applied to me is vis-a-vis my premature apprehension of the deep dread-of-existence thing. In all other cases, I plod and tromp along. My knuckles? Well dragged. Colson Whitehead knucklesexistencecases I'm an African-American writer, I'm a lazy writer, I'm a writer who likes to watch The Wire, I'm a writer who likes to eat a lot of steak. Colson Whitehead american-writerwirelazy New York City does not hold our former selves against us. Perhaps we can extend the same courtesy. Colson Whitehead citiesnew-yorkself The city knows you better than any living person because it has seen you when you are alone. Colson Whitehead personscitiesknows To put off the inevitable, we try to fix the city in place, remember it as it was, doing to the city what we would never allow to be done to ourselves. . . . New York City does not hold our former selves against us. Perhaps we can extend the same courtesy. Colson Whitehead citiesnew-yorkself What does the perfect elevator look like, the one that will deliver us from the cities we suffer now, these stunted shacks? We don't know because we can't see inside it, it's something we cannot imagine, like the shape of angels' teeth. It's a black box. Colson Whitehead angelcitiesperfect Talking about New York is a way of talking about the world. Colson Whitehead new-yorktalkingworld I'd never been much of an athlete, due to a physical condition I'd had since birth (unathleticism). Perhaps if there were a sport centered around lying on your couch in a neurotic stupor all day, I'd take an interest. Colson Whitehead athletesportslying I can't blame modern technology for my predilection for distraction, not after all the hours I've spent watching lost balloons disappear into the clouds. I did it before the Internet, and I'll do it after the apocalypse, assuming we still have helium and weak-gripped children. Colson Whitehead technologycloudschildren Early on my career, I figured out that I just have to write the book I have to write at that moment. Whatever else is going on in the culture is just not that important. If you could get the culture to write your book, that would be great. But the culture can't write your book. Colson Whitehead careerswritingbook Twenty years ago, when I started writing, I didn't define myself as an African-American writer. And then you write books and you're focused on what's inside your books, and that kind of term is generally used on the outside, by the critical establishment. Colson Whitehead kindwritingbook Growing up devouring horror comics and novels, and being inspired to become a writer because of horror novels, movies, and comic books, I always knew I was going to write a horror novel. Colson Whitehead growing-upwritingbook I get invited to do panels with other Brooklyn writers to discuss what it's like to be a writer in Brooklyn. I expect it's like writing in Manhattan, but there aren't as many tourists walking very slowly in front of you when you step out for coffee. Colson Whitehead pariscoffeewriting New York City in life was much like New York City in death. It was still hard to get a cab, for example. Colson Whitehead examplecitiesnew-york 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. Colson Whitehead hurtpeoplethinking I write books and either people read them or they don't read them. The rise of Facebook or e-books doesn't change the difficulty level of writing sentences and thinking up new ideas. Colson Whitehead writingbookthinking A lot of people, when they first hear about the Underground Railroad, think it really is a subway or a locomotive. When they find out it's not, they feel a little disappointed. So I thought, What if it was a literal underground train network traveling from state to state, with each state it goes through representing a different opportunity or danger? Colson Whitehead opportunitypeoplethinking
