Quotessence
Home / Books / The Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad

Book by Colson Whitehead · 24 quotes · Slavery, Freedom, African Americans

Filter quotes by topic

AllSlaveryFreedomAfrican AmericansRace RelationsAmericaColsonCoraRailroadUndergroundUnited States Of AmericaWhite PeopleWhiteheadAbuse Of PowerAlonenessAmericanAmerican HistoryBeliefBlack HistoryChainsCruelty

The Underground Railroad Quotes

“And America, too, is a delusion, the grandest one of all. The white race believes--believes with all its heart--that it is their right to take the land. To kill Indians. Make war. Enslave their brothers. This nation shouldn't exist, if there is any justice in the world, for its foundations are murder, theft, and cruelty. Yet here we are.”

WarAmericaUnited StatesSlaveryCrueltyUsaUnited States Of AmericaAfrican AmericansTheftRace RelationsUsNative AmericansDelusions
Book:The Underground Railroad
Create image

“But nobody wanted to speak on the true disposition of the world. And no one wanted to hear it... The whites came to this land for a fresh start and to escape the tyranny of their masters, just as the Freeman had fled theirs. But the ideals they held up for themselves, they denied others. 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. Not if they snatched away what belonged to other people, whether it was something you could hold in your hand, like dirt, or something you could not, like freedom.”

FreedomSlaveryNative AmericanAmerican
Book:The Underground Railroad
Create image

“Freedom was a thing that shifted as you looked at it, the way a forest is dense with the trees up close but from the outside, from the empty meadow, you see its true limits. Being free had nothing to do with chains or how much space you had. On the plantation, she was not free, but she moved unrestricted on its acres, tasting the air and tracing the summer stars. The place was big in its smallness. Here, she was free of her master but slunk around a warren so tiny she couldn't stand.”

FreedomSpaceLimitsChainsOutsideShift
Book:The Underground Railroad
Create image

“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.”

FreedomSlaveryEqualityUnited States Of AmericaDeclaration Of Independence
Book:The Underground Railroad
Create image

“How could such a bitter thing become a means of pleasure? Everything on Valentine was the opposite. Work needn't be suffering, it could unite folks. A bright child like Chester might thrive and prosper, as Molly and her friends did. A mother raise her daughter with love and kindness. A beautiful soul like Caesar could be anything he wanted here, all of them could be: own a spread, be a schoolteacher, fight for colored rights. Even be a poet. In her Georgia misery she had pictured freedom, and it had not looked like this. Freedom was a community laboring for something lovely and rare.”

FreedomValentineIndianaCora
Book:The Underground Railroad
Create image

“I'm what the botanists call a hybrid," he said the first time Cora heard him speak, "A mixture of two different families. In flowers, such a concoction pleases the eye. When that amalgamation takes its shape in flesh and blood, some take great offence. In this room we recognize it for what it is - a new beauty come into the world, and it is in bloom all around us.”

ElijahMixed RaceUndergroundRailroadMixed RacesWhiteheadColsonLander
Book:The Underground Railroad
Create image

“The iron horse still rumbled through the tunnel when she woke. Lumbly's words returned to her: "If you want to see what this nation is all about, you have to ride the rails. Look outside as you speed through, and you'll find the true face of America." It was a joke, then, from the start. There was only darkness outside the windows on her journeys, and only ever would be darkness.”

AmericaCoraUndergroundRailroadWhiteheadColsonLumbly
Book:The Underground Railroad
Create image