The collection / 62 fragments

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62 results · Page 2 of 3Play this collection ▷

01c. 1969 AD

The only time "early bloomer" has ever been applied to me is vis-a-vis my premature apprehension of the deep dread-of-existence thing. In all other cases, I plod and tromp along. My knuckles? Well dragged.

Colson Whitehead / quote

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02c. 1969 AD

Now that she had run away and seen a bit of the country, Cora wasn't sure the document described anything real at all. America was a ghost in the darkness, like her.

Colson Whitehead / quote

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03c. 1969 AD

my father liked his Indian talk about the Great Spirit," Ridgeway said. "All these years late, I prefer the American spirit, the one that called us from the Old World to the New, to conquer and build and civilize. And destroy that what needs to be destroyed. To lift up the lesser races. If not lift up, subjugate. And if not subjugate, exterminate. One destiny by divine perscription--the American imperative.

Colson Whitehead / quote

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04c. 1969 AD

The land she tilled and worked had been Indian land. She knew the white men bragged about the efficiency of the massacres, where they killed women and babies, and strangled their futures in the crib. Stolen babies working stolen land. It was an engine that did not stop, its hungry boiler fed with blood.

Colson Whitehead / quote

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05c. 1969 AD

If niggers were supposed to have their freedom, they wouldn't be in chains. If the red man was supposed to keep hold of his land, it'd still be his. If the white man wasn't destined to take this new world, he wouldn't own it now.Here was the true Great Spirit, the divine thread connecting all human endeavor--if you can keep it, it is yours. Your property, slave or continent. The American imperative.

Colson Whitehead / quote

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06c. 1969 AD

The other patrollers were boys and men of bad character; the work attracted a type. In another country they would have been criminals, but this was America.

Colson Whitehead / quote

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07c. 1969 AD

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 / quote

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08c. 1969 AD

Stolen bodies working stolen land. It was an engine that did not stop, its hungry boiler fed with blood.

Colson Whitehead / quote

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09c. 1969 AD

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 / quote

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10c. 1969 AD

They don't give gold bracelets for regrets.

Colson Whitehead / quote

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11c. 1969 AD

Whoever has the better stuff wins. Sound familiar, American lackeys of late-stage capitalism?

Colson Whitehead / quote

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12c. 1969 AD

Resentment was the hinge of her personality.

Colson Whitehead / quote

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13c. 1969 AD

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 / quote

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14c. 1969 AD

That is how the European tribes operate, she said, If they can't control it, they destroy it.

Colson Whitehead / quote

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15c. 1969 AD

Slavery is a sin when whites were put to the yoke, but not the African. All men are created equal, unless we decide you are not a man.

Colson Whitehead / quote

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16c. 1969 AD

it means what it say," Ethel said. "It means that a Hebrew may not enslave a Hebrew. But the sons of Ham are not of that tribe. The were cursed, with black skin and tails. Where the Scripture condemns slavery, it is not speaking of negro slavery at all.

Colson Whitehead / quote

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17c. 1969 AD

From the trunk of their scheme, choices and decisions sprouted like branches and shoots.

Colson Whitehead / quote

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18c. 1969 AD

What a world it is, Cora thought, that makes a living prison into your only haven. Was she out of bondage or in its web: how to describe the status of a runaway?

Colson Whitehead / quote

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19c. 1969 AD

White man trying to kill you slow every day, and sometimes trying to kill you fast. Why make it easy for him? That was one kind of work you could say no to.

Colson Whitehead / quote

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20c. 1969 AD

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 / quote

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21c. 1969 AD

Nature is a strong brand name. Everybody knew that. First thing, Nomenclature 101. Slap Natural on the package, you were golden. Those words on the package promise ease from metropolitan care, modern worries. And out here, if you opened things up, underneath the cellophane, what did you find inside? That fruit has splendid packaging, it has solid consumer awareness and is an animal favorite. Its seeds will be deposited in spoor miles away and its market dominance will increase. Splendid and beautiful petals are great advertising--the insects buzz and hop from all points every weekend to hit this flower-bed mall. Natural selection was market forces. In business, in the woods: what is necessary to the world will last.

Colson Whitehead / quote

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22c. 1969 AD

Racial prejudice rotted one's faculties, he said.

Colson Whitehead / quote

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23c. 1969 AD

I'd never been much of an athlete, due to a physical condition I'd had since birth (unathleticism). Perhaps if there were a sport centered around lying on your couch in a neurotic stupor all day, I'd take an interest.

Colson Whitehead / quote

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24c. 1969 AD

Cora blamed the people who wrote it down. People always got things wrong, on purpose as much as by accident.

Colson Whitehead / quote

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