"A monster is a person who has stopped pretending."
"Isn't it great when you're a kid and the world is full of anonymous things? Everything is bright and mysterious until you know what it is called and then all the light goes out of it...Once we knew the name of it, how could we ever come to love it?...For things had true natures, and they hid behind false names, beneath the skin we gave them."
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More quotes by Colson Whitehead
"As time went on, we learned to arm ourselves in our different ways. Some of us with real guns, some of us with more ephemeral weapons, an idea or improbable plan or some sort of formulation about how best to move through the world. An idea that will let us be. Protect us and keep us safe. But a weapon nonetheless."
"It is failure that guides evolution; perfection provides no incentive for improvement, and nothing is perfect."
"You are a New Yorker when what was there before is more real and solid than what is here now."
"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."
"Memory is the most malicious cutter of all, preserving, recasting, panning in slow motion across the awful bits so that we retain every detail."