Colson Whitehead Quotes

I consider myself West African, among other cultural identities, and a writer, among other creative ones.

I'm born and raised in Georgia, so I have a lot of appreciation for hip-hop, but I want to be able to show the emotional side of me.

If I had to name one book that has had the most lasting influence on my work, I would pick 'The Big Sea' by Langston Hughes.

I don't see myself as a 'black actor,' I'm just Shemar Moore the actor. I'm very proud to be black, but I'm just as much black as I am white.

I've always called myself a different shade of Brown.

The only thing Oriental about me, is my face.

I'm the happiest combination you can think of. I'm a Russian poet, an English essayist, and a citizen of the United States.

I was born Chinese, and I write in Chinese. I don't think there's any need to evade this... to a writer, as to a person, what matters is not his political label or his nationality, but whether he is a person and whether his work is worth looking at.

I connect to the tradition of Irish storytelling. And I think there is something - I can't put my finger on it - something genetic there. Maybe just a need to tell stories.

I read 'Song of Solomon' by Toni Morrison in college, and it just blew my mind.

When I was growing up, 'Ebony Magazine' was a must read in our household. In those pages I found our news, our stories, and my pride.

Arnold Rampersad's stunningly revealing biography has, at long last, unveiled-in magisterial prose-the very complex and vulnerable man behind Ralph Ellison's own masks and myths. One of the nation's most brilliant writers emerges as all the more fascinating precisely because he was so very human. Painstakingly researched and compellingly written, Ralph Ellison is a masterwork of the genre of literary biography.

Of course, we carry inside of ourselves our parents. Even when they are dead, we carry them inside ourselves. And they are carrying inside themselves their dead parents and so on and so forth. There is a legacy of language and culture and religion.

Poetry is a natural energy resource of our country.

The use of history is to tell us what we are, for at our birth we are nearly empty vessels and we become what our tradition pours into us.

As by some might be saide of me: that here I have but gathered a nosegay of strange floures, and have put nothing of mine unto it, but the thred to binde them. Certes, I have given unto publike opinion, that these borrowed ornaments accompany me; but I meane not they should cover or hide me.

My parents insisted that we should always be respectful, never forget where we come from and that we are part of the challenges facing our people

I'm 100 percent Jewish by blood, but by education I'm nothing. By affiliation I'm nothing.

I don't feel French at all. That was never really a concern, and it's limiting to think that way. I think Paris is more of a playground for international designers, so I don't really feel French. And I don't really want to feel French.

I consider myself a person who comes from a Muslim culture. In any case, I would not say that I'm an atheist. So I'm a Muslim who associates historical and cultural identification with this religion.

I am Jewish and proud of this culturally and ethnically - the ways in which I was born this way and am happy with whom I am.

The arts are not just a nice thing to have or to do if there is free time or if one can afford it. Rather, paintings and poetry, music and fashion, design and dialogue, they all define who we are as a people and provide an account of our history for the next generation.

I'm proud of my Native American heritage.

I am Jewish. My real name is Chris Tuckenberg. A lot of people don't know about that.

I identify myself as a Nigerian because that is where I was born and raised and where my family still lives.