Memory is the most malicious cutter of all, preserving, recasting, panning in slow motion across the awful bits so that we retain every detail.
Colson WhiteheadFor years I felt that I wasn't ready to take on slavery. It's a huge topic, and I didn't want to mess it up.
Colson WhiteheadIn 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 WhiteheadIt is failure that guides evolution; perfection provides no incentive for improvement, and nothing is perfect.
Colson WhiteheadI think each book has its own way of accommodating my concerns, whether it's about race, America, technology, the city.
Colson WhiteheadThe thing I love about New York is getting lost but not worrying, just wandering and wandering, knowing that there's always a subway only ten blocks away in any direction. There's always a new neighborhood to discover, a new place to lose your bearings in, and yet however alien it seems you can escape. You can always get a cab. All of life's problems can be solved by hailing a cab.
Colson Whitehead