412 Quotes by Colson Whitehead

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

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.

Each book requires a different kind of treatment and structural gambit.

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

Generally, I walk around in a glum mood.

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.

The Declaration of Independence is that sacred American text so full of meaning and purpose and yet quite empty if you examine it and pull it apart because the words 'All Men' exclude a vast number of citizens.

You can raze the old buildings and erect magnificent corporate towers, hose down Port Authority, but you can't change people.

Growing up as a product of the black civil-rights movement, I had a lot of different models for black weirdness, whether it's Richard Pryor or James Baldwin or Jimmy Walker.