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Colson Whitehead Quotes

Arch Colson Chipp Whitehead is an American novelist. He is the author of nine novels, including his 1999 debut The Intuitionist; The Underground Railroad , for which he won the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction and the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; and The Nickel Boys, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction again in 2020. He has also published two books of nonfiction. In 2002, he received a MacArthur Fellowship. Wikipedia  

✵ 6. November 1969   •   Other names Колсон Вайтхед
Colson Whitehead photo

Works

The Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad
Colson Whitehead
Zone One
Zone One
Colson Whitehead
The Intuitionist
The Intuitionist
Colson Whitehead
Colson Whitehead: 12   quotes 2   likes

Famous Colson Whitehead Quotes

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

Colson Whitehead book The Underground Railroad

Source: The Underground Railroad

“I never know when I start out. You know, I sort of know what the ending is. I know where the characters always end up, and I usually have an image of the last page before I start. I'm a big outliner. But you can't know everything and you have to be open to discovery…”

Colson Whitehead

On how envisioning an ending allows him to conclude each character’s journey in “Extended interview: Colson Whitehead on writing ‘The Nickel Boys’" https://www.cbsnews.com/news/extended-interview-colson-whitehead-on-writing-the-nickel-boys/ in CBS News (2019 Jul 14)

“Slavery is a sin when whites were put to the yoke, but not the African. All men are created equal, unless we decide you are not a man.”

Colson Whitehead book The Underground Railroad

Source: The Underground Railroad

“Google “brooklyn writer” and you’ll get”

Colson Whitehead

“It is failure that guides evolution; perfection provides no incentive for improvement, and nothing is perfect.”

Colson Whitehead book The Intuitionist

Source: The Intuitionist

Colson Whitehead Quotes

“The whites came to this land for a fresh start and to escape the tyranny of their masters, just as the freemen had fled theirs. But the ideals they held up for themselves, they denied others.”

Colson Whitehead book The Underground Railroad

Source: The Underground Railroad

“Cora didn't know what optimistic meant. She asked the other girls that night if they were familiar with the word. None of them had heard it before. She decided that it meant trying.”

Colson Whitehead book The Underground Railroad

Source: The Underground Railroad

Girl , Night

“A society manufactures the heroes it requires.”

Colson Whitehead book Zone One

Source: Zone One

“Truth was a changing display in a shop window, manipulated by hands when you weren’t looking, alluring and ever out of reach.”

Colson Whitehead book The Underground Railroad

Source: The Underground Railroad

Truth , Change

“My compulsion to write the story was from seeing so many people go unpunished, and so many innocents' stories being untold…”

Colson Whitehead

On his moral imperative to write his work The Nickel Boys in “INTERVIEWS—Powell's Interview: Colson Whitehead, Author of 'The Nickel Boys'” https://www.powells.com/post/interviews/powells-interview-colson-whitehead-author-of-the-nickel-boys in Powell’s City of Books (2019 Jul 11)

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