412 Quotes by Colson Whitehead

If the correct things belonged to you, perhaps you might belong.

She was a stray after all. A stray not only in its plantation meaning-orphaned, with no one to look after her-but in every other sphere as well. Somewhere, years ago, she had stepped off the path of life and could no longer find her way back to the family of people.

That was the man's real trouble, not the savage and uncanny civilizations he encountered--he kept forgetting what he had.

You are a New Yorker when what was there before is more real and solid than what is here now.

The city knows you better than any living person because it has seen you when you are alone.

Maybe we become New Yorkers the day we realize that New York will go on without us.

New York City does not hold our former selves against us. Perhaps we can extend the same courtesy.

Cherish your old apartments and pause for a moment when you pass them. Pay tribute, for they are the caretakers for your reinventions.

As if these daily humiliations and sacrifices mean something, are tallied by the ones who keep the books. Tomorrow we pick up where we left off. Sleep tight. Sleep deep. Sleep the sleep of the successful because somehow you made it through the day without anyone finding out that you are a complete fraud.