412 Quotes by Colson Whitehead

Violence is the only lever big enough to move the world

Mark Spitz didn't ask about Harry. You never asked about the characters that disappeared from a Last Night story. You knew the answer. The plague had a knack for narrative closure.

That is how the European tribes operate, she said, If they can't control it, they destroy it.

...we got sanded. In the towels, scalps, clumping on sweat along our limbs. It had begun, the gritification of the day.

A monster is a person who has stopped pretending.

The mere fact of Vegas, its necessity, was an indictment of our normal lives. If we needed this place--to transform into a high roller or a sexy swinger, to be someone else, a winner for once--then certainly the world beyond the desert was a small and mealy place indeed.

In the dank utility room deep in the subbasements of my personality, a little man wiped his hands on his overalls and pulled the switch: More.

A society manufactures the heroes it requires.

Spoiler: I didn't win the Main Event. You had suspicions, you say? For one thing, the subtitle of this book would be "The Amazing Life-Affirming Story of an Unremarkable Jerk Who Won the World Series of Poker!" instead of having the word "Death" in it. For another, do these sound like the words of a motherfucker who won a million goddamn dollars?