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Quote by Colson Whitehead

“It had been a humdrum couple of days, reaffirming his belief in reincarnation: everything was so boring that this could not be the first time he'd experienced it.”

Quote by Colson Whitehead

Author

Colson Whitehead

Colson Whitehead is an American novelist known for his distinctive literary style and profound insights into historical themes. His works cover a range of topics from slavery to modern urban life, with his 'New York Trilogy' and 'The Underground Railroad' being particularly notable. more

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“There will be no redemption because the men who run this place do not want redemption. They want to be as near to hell as they can.”

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Book:The Intuitionist: A Novel

Source: The Intuitionist: A Novel

“I can't blame modern technology for my predilection for distraction, not after all the hours I've spent watching lost balloons disappear into the clouds. I did it before the Internet, and I'll do it after the apocalypse, assuming we still have helium and weak-gripped children.”

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Author:Colson Whitehead

“Talking about New York is a way of talking about the world.”

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Book:The Colossus of New York

Source: The Colossus of New York

“To put off the inevitable, we try to fix the city in place, remember it as it was, doing to the city what we would never allow to be done to ourselves. . . . New York City does not hold our former selves against us. Perhaps we can extend the same courtesy.”

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Author:Colson Whitehead

“You are a New Yorker when what was there before is more real and solid than what is here now.”

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Book:The Colossus of New York

Source: The Colossus of New York

“Don’t go searching for a subject, let your subject find you. You can’t rush inspiration. … Once your subject finds you, it’s like falling in love. It will be your constant companion. Shadowing you, peeping in your windows, calling you at all hours to leave messages like, Only you understand me.”

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Author:Colson Whitehead

“Most literary critics agree that fiction cannot be reduced to mere falsehood. Well-crafted protagonists come to life, pornography causes orgasms, and the pretense that life is what we want it to be may conceivably bring about the desired condition. Hence religious parables, socialist realism, Nazi propaganda. And if this story likewise crawls with reactionary supernaturalism, that might be because its author longs to see letters scuttling across ceilings, cautiously beginning to reify themselves into angels. For if they could only do that, then why not us?”

Source: Europe Central

“The only way to know whats possible is to venture past impossible.”

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Author:Mary Gaitskill

“But now all the natural secrets have been exposed, and it is likely that the turtles have been sold to laboratory scientists who want to remove their shells so that they can wire electrodes to the turtles' skin in order to monitor their increasing terror at the loss of their shells.”

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Author:Mary Gaitskill

“Somebody once said to me if you want to be understood, don't write fiction.”

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Author:Mary Gaitskill