“Nowdays, Rosie the Rivetere was a former soccer mom who had just opened her own catering business when Last Night came down and her husband and kids were eaten by a parking attendant at the local megamall’s discount- appliance emporium.”
— Colson Whitehead
“Most people say, “Show, don’t tell,” but I stand by Show and Tell, because when writers put their work out into the world, they’re like kids bringing their broken unicorns and chewed-up teddy bears into class in the sad hope that someone else will love them as much as they do.”
— Colson Whitehead
“A monster is a person who has stopped pretending.”
— Colson Whitehead
“Mark Spitz had met plenty of the divine-retribution folks over the months. This was their moment; they were umbrella salesmen standing outside a subway entrance in a downpour. The human race deserved the plague, we brought it on ourselves for poisoning the planet, for the Death of God, the calculated brutalities of the global economic system, for driving primordial species to extinction: the entire collapse of values as evidenced by everything from nuclear fission to reality television to alternate side of the street parking. Mark Spitz could only endure these harangues for a minute or two before he split. It was boring.The plague was the plague. You were wearing galoshes, or you weren’t.”
— Colson Whitehead
“New York City in life was much like New York City in death. It was still hard to get a cab, for example.”
— Colson Whitehead
“A society manufactures the heroes it requires.”
— Colson Whitehead
“You are a New Yorker when what was there before is more real and solid than what is here now.”
— Colson Whitehead
“Maybe we become New Yorkers the day we realize that New York will go on without us.”
— Colson Whitehead
“New York City does not hold our former selves against us. Perhaps we can extend the same courtesy.”
— Colson Whitehead
“Cherish your old apartments and pause for a moment when you pass them. Pay tribute, for they are the caretakers for your reinventions.”
— Colson Whitehead
“The city knows you better than any living person because it has seen you when you are alone.”
— Colson Whitehead
“As if these daily humiliations and sacrifices mean something, are tallied by the ones who keep the books. Tomorrow we pick up where we left off. Sleep tight. Sleep deep. Sleep the sleep of the successful because somehow you made it through the day without anyone finding out that you are a complete fraud.”
— Colson Whitehead
“I’m here because I was born here and thus ruined for anywhere else, but I don’t know about you.”
— Colson Whitehead
“Why should anyone else have it easy. Spoken like a true New Yorker.”
— Colson Whitehead
“Cora blamed the people who wrote it down. People always got things wrong, on purpose as much as by accident.”
— Colson Whitehead
“I’d never been much of an athlete, due to a physical condition I’d had since birth (unathleticism). Perhaps if there were a sport centered around lying on your couch in a neurotic stupor all day, I’d take an interest.”
— Colson Whitehead
“Racial prejudice rotted one’s faculties, he said.”
— Colson Whitehead
“Nature is a strong brand name. Everybody knew that. First thing, Nomenclature 101. Slap Natural on the package, you were golden. Those words on the package promise ease from metropolitan care, modern worries. And out here, if you opened things up, underneath the cellophane, what did you find inside? That fruit has splendid packaging, it has solid consumer awareness and is an animal favorite. Its seeds will be deposited in spoor miles away and its market dominance will increase. Splendid and beautiful petals are great advertising–the insects buzz and hop from all points every weekend to hit this flower-bed mall. Natural selection was market forces. In business, in the woods: what is necessary to the world will last.”
— Colson Whitehead
“A slow hour passed, distracted by intermittent drops of moisture from above, as if the sky were conducting a feasibility study on the implications of rain. Of committing to a course of action.”
— Colson Whitehead
“From the trunk of their scheme, choices and decisions sprouted like branches and shoots.”
— Colson Whitehead
“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?”
— Colson Whitehead
“White man trying to kill you slow every day, and sometimes trying to kill you fast. Why make it easy for him? That was one kind of work you could say no to.”
— Colson Whitehead
“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
“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.”
— Colson Whitehead
“That is how the European tribes operate, she said, If they can’t control it, they destroy it.”
— Colson Whitehead
“He imagined a town called A. Around the communal fire they’re shaping arrowheads and carving tributes o the god of the hunt. One day some guys with spears come over the ridge, perform all kinds of meanness, take over, and the new guys rename the town B. Whereupon they hang around the communal fire sharpening arrowheads and carving tributes to the god of the hunt. Some climatic tragedy occurs — not carving the correct tributary figurines probably — and the people of B move farther south, where word is there’s good fishing, at least according to those who wander to B just before being cooked for dinner. Another tribe of unlucky souls stops for the night in the emptied village, looks around at the natural defenses provided by the landscape, and decides to stay awhile. It’s a while lot better than their last digs — what with the lack of roving tigers and such — plus it comes with all the original fixtures. they call the place C, after their elder, who has learned that pretending to talk to spirits is a fun gag that gets you stuff. Time passes. More invasions, more recaptures, D, E, F, and G. H stands as it is for a while. That ridge provides some protection from the spring floods, and if you keep a sentry up there you can see the enemy coming for miles. Who wouldn’t want to park themselves in that real estate? The citizens of H leave behind cool totems eventually toppled by the people of I, whose lack of aesthetic sense if made up for by military acumen. J, K, L, adventures in thatched roofing, some guys with funny religions from the eastern plains, long-haired freaks from colder climes, the town is burned to the ground and rebuilt by still more fugitives. This is the march of history. And conquest and false hope. M falls to plague, N to natural disaster — same climatic tragedy as before, apparently it’s cyclical. Mineral wealth makes it happen for the O people, and the P people are renowned for their basket weaving. No one ever — ever — mentions Q. The dictator names the city after himself; his name starts with the letter R. When the socialists come to power they spend a lot of time painting over his face, which is everywhere. They don’t last. Nobody lasts because there’s always somebody else. They all thought they owned it because they named it and that was their undoing. They should have kept the place nameless. They should have been glad for their good fortune, and left it at that. X, Y, Z.”
— Colson Whitehead
“Her father dropped her off in front of the place where she was to live and left the engine running. Lila Mae removed the two suitcases from the back of the pickup truck. The suitcases were new, with a formidable casing of green plastic. Scratchproof, supposedly. Her father had only been able to afford them because they were, manufacturer’s oats aside, scratched — gouged actually, as if an animal had taken them in its fangs to teach them about hubris.”
— Colson Whitehead
“Resentment was the hinge of her personality.”
— Colson Whitehead
“Whoever has the better stuff wins. Sound familiar, American lackeys of late-stage capitalism?”
— Colson Whitehead
“They don’t give gold bracelets for regrets.”
— Colson Whitehead