Quotes from Colson Whitehead

OddaliÅ' siÄ™ od babci tak bardzo jak wszyscy z rodziny, którzy odeszli, cho? siedziaÅ' naprzeciwko. Podczas odwiedzin powiedziaÅ' jej, ?e jest zdrowy, tylko smutny, ?e nie jest Å'atwo, ale jakoÅ› sobie radzi, a przecie? najbardziej na Å›wiecie chciaÅ' powiedzie?: Zobacz, babciu, co oni ze mnÄ… zrobili. Zobacz, co ze mnÄ… zrobili.

On the bed of damp earth, her breathing slowed and that which separated herself from the swamp disappeared. She was free. This moment. She had to go back.

A plane dragged black letters through the air: Happy Birthday America—200 Years of Liberty and Independence. Who paid for it? He couldn't tell, so he added: Love, Buckwheat.

I don't get where it says, He that stealeth a man and sells him, shall be put to death," Cora said. "But then later it says, Slaves should be submissive to their masters in everything—and be well-pleasing." Either it was a sin to keep another as property, or it had God's own blessing. But to be well-pleasing in addition? A slaver must have snuck into the printing office and put that in there.

One of the radio stations sometimes played the theme to the Andy Griffith Show...The song was a tiny, quiet piece of America carved out of the rest. No fire hoses, no need for the National Guard.

You have to stand up real close to the posters to see the swirls, and even then they're easy to miss: Lila Mae had to have Jimmy point them out to her. Horns, boiling cysts, the occasional cussword inked in across Chancre's slat teeth—they add up after a while, somehow more personal and meaningful than the usual cartoons and pinups of office homesteading.

Take it out on each other if you cannot take it out on the ones who deserve

Craftsmen and artisans created items that were brittle rumors compared with his father's iron facts.

brown hair, pebbly eyes dark beneath his straw hat, drove a team of workhorses from the west. His cheeks were sunburned

Now he worked on a new theory: There was no higher system guiding Nickel's brutality, merely an indiscriminate spite, one that had nothing to do with people. A figment from tenth-grade science struck him: a Perpetual Misery Machine, one that operated by itself without human agency. Also, Archimedes, one of his first encyclopedia finds. Violence is the only lever big enough to move the world.

Even in death the boys were trouble..............Now they had to start a new inquiry, establish the identities of the deceased and the manner of death, and there was no telling when the whole damned place could be razed, cleared, and neatly erased from history, which everyone agreed was long overdue.

in for the evening. The town rose into view, the biggest Cora had seen since North Carolina, if not as long established. The long main street, with its two banks and the loud row of taverns, was enough to bring her back to the days of the dormitory. The town gave no indication of quieting for the night, shops open, citizens a-prowl on the wooden sidewalks. Boseman was adamant about not spending the night. If the

I was nostalgic for everything big and small. Nostalgic for what never happened and nostalgic about what will be, looking forward to looking back on a time when things got easier.

Perhaps if he'd spent more time in the crucible of the county jail, Elwood would have known that it is best not to interfere in other people's violence, no matter the underlying facts of the incident.

The secret triumph you keep in your heart.

If you had the power to make people do what you wanted and never exercised it, what was the point of having it?

This sense of dignity.

In his life, Donald wrapped himself in a kind of quiet that, depending on the observer, signaled imbecility or a reservoir of mystery.

its terms? Homer watched her as she dressed, like a valet who had waited on her since the cradle. "I'm caught," Cora said. "You choose to be with him." Homer looked puzzled. He took out his notebook, turned to the last page, and scribbled.

Reverend King's equation. Throw us in jail and we will still love you…But be assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and one day we will win our freedom. We will not only win freedom for ourselves, we will so appeal to your heart and your conscience that we will win you in the process and our victory will be a double victory. No, he could not make that leap to love.

The idea was like a hunk of wood, Caesar thought, requiring human craft and ingenuity to reveal the new shape within.

All I truly know is that we rise and fall as one, one colored family living next door to one white family. We may not know the way through the forest, but we can pick each other up when we fall, and we will arrive together." —

Fear drove these people, even more than cotton money.

rare frost that morning, the wind howling