412 Quotes by Colson Whitehead

Liberty make a body fertile,” Georgina said. That, and the knowledge they will not be sold, Cora added.

People wore different kinds of chains across their lifetimes, but it wasn't hard to interpret rebellion, even when the rebels wore costumes to deny blame.

it means what it say," Ethel said. "It means that a Hebrew may not enslave a Hebrew. But the sons of Ham are not of that tribe. The were cursed, with black skin and tails. Where the Scripture condemns slavery, it is not speaking of negro slavery at all.

When the slaves finished, they had stripped the fields of their color. It was a magnificent operation, from seed to bale, but no one of them could be prideful of their labor. It had been stolen from them. Bled from them.

Cora had heard Michael recite the Declaration of Independence back on the Randall plantation many times, his voice drifting through the village like an angry phantom. She didn't understand the words, most of them at any rate, but 'created equal' was not lost on her. The white men who wrote it didn't understand it either, if 'all men' did not truly mean all men.

see chains on another person and be glad they are not your own--such was the good fortune permitted colored people, defined by how much worse it could be at any moment.

What a world it is, Cora thought, that makes a living prison into your only haven. Was she out of bondage or in its web: how to describe the status of a runaway?

Stolen bodies working stolen land. It was an engine that did not stop, its hungry boiler fed with blood.

I can't help it if I understand that everything tends to ruin. Over our heads, Skylab is eternally falling down, I can see it all, the debris raining without cessation. I was a skinny guy, but I was morbidly obese with doom.