“A monster is a person who has stopped pretending.”
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“I'm here because I was born here and thus ruined for anywhere else, but I don't know about you.”
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“In keeping with my family's affection for doomed product lines and hexed formats, we purchased a Betamax. The year before, we'd bought a TRS-80 instead of an Apple II, and in due course we'd unbox Mattel's Intellivision, instead of Atari's legendary gizmo. This was good training for a writer, for the sooner you accept the fact that you are a deluded idiot who is always out of step with reality the better off you will be.”
Colson Whitehead“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.”
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, The Intuitionist“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.”
Colson Whitehead, The Intuitionist“An elevator doesn’t exist without its freight. If there’s no one to get on, the elevator remains in quiescence. The elevator and the passenger need each other.”
Colson Whitehead, The Intuitionist“It is failure that guides evolution; perfection provides no incentive for improvement, and nothing is perfect.”
Colson Whitehead, The Intuitionist