412 Quotes by Colson Whitehead

Patrol was not difficult work. They stopped any niggers they saw and demanded their passes. They stopped niggers they knew to be free, for their amusement but also to remind the Africans of the forces arrayed against them, whether they were owned by a white man or not.

You go on about reasons," Cora said, "call things by other names, as if it changes what they are. But that doesn't make them true." ...."but we have all been branded, even if you can't see it - inside, if not without.

I feel about my phone the way horror-movie ventriloquists feel about their dummies: It's smarter than me, better than me, and I will kill anyone who comes between us.

Even in death the boys were trouble.

The first time Caesar approached Cora about running north, she said no.

I'm what the botanists call a hybrid," he said the first time Cora heard him speak, "A mixture of two different families. In flowers, such a concoction pleases the eye. When that amalgamation takes its shape in flesh and blood, some take great offence. In this room we recognize it for what it is - a new beauty come into the world, and it is in bloom all around us.

We Anhedonians have adapted to long periods between good news. Our national animal is the hope camel. We have no national bird. All the birds are dead.

She recognizes the cramped handwriting, the internecine, slashing script. She has studied it under the gaze of the Institute Librarian, in locked rooms -- she even, in the early, giddy days of her conversion, practiced Fulton's handwriting for hours. Knows the ink. . . . Here it is now, on the familiar notebook paper Fulton preferred. She tracked down the manufacturer once; they have a plant across the river where they still turn out the Fontaine line.

Georgina hailed from Delaware and had that vexing way of Delaware ladies, delighting in puzzles.