Colson Whitehead quote: "Failing at everything except his fear of success. Passed over yet again. Archivist of slights. Everyone else's good fortune is food out of your mouth or a hug you never got from someone who should have loved you better. Halfway through lunch she realized glass ceilings allow glimpses up into another person's hell."

Crossing a single street transformed the way people talked, determined the size and condition of the...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

You swallow hard when you discover that the old coffee shop is now a chain pharmacy, that the place ...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

The only time "early bloomer" has ever been applied to me is vis-a-vis my premature apprehension of ...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

As time went on, we learned to arm ourselves in our different ways. Some of us with real guns, some ...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

It is failure that guides evolution; perfection provides no incentive for improvement, and nothing i...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

A firefly blinked into existence, drew half a word in the air. Then gone. A black bug secret in the ...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

memory has a palette and broad brush.
COLSON WHITEHEAD

in the slow motion that is the speed of humiliation.
COLSON WHITEHEAD

Two people, two hands, and two songs, in this case "Big Shot" and "Bette Davis Eyes." The lyrics of ...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

Life! What Inscrutable Card Shall Ye Throw Next Upon the Soft Felt of Our Days?
COLSON WHITEHEAD

I can't blame modern technology for my predilection for distraction, not after all the hours I've sp...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

And America, too, is a delusion, the grandest one of all. The white race believes--believes with all...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

There will be no redemption because the men who run this place do not want redemption. They want to ...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

see chains on another person and be glad they are not your own--such was the good fortune permitted ...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

When black blood was money, the savvy businessman knew to open the vein.
COLSON WHITEHEAD

High-minded idiocy pitted against the power of coin.
COLSON WHITEHEAD

The words from across the ocean were beaten out of them over time. For simplicity, to erase their id...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

How to undo slavery's injury to the mental faculties–so many freed men continued to be enslaved by...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

The doctor was a frequent visitor at Miss Trumball's establishment, preferring it to the Lanchester ...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

You are a soulless monster whose fright mask is incapable of capturing human expressions.
COLSON WHITEHEAD

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

Nature is a strong brand name. Everybody knew that. First thing, Nomenclature 101. Slap Natural on t...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

I don't feel like I have to conform to some idea of what black literature is. I think of my ideas an...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

It was just very calming, I became less anxious about what my next move was. I think it gave me brea...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

We never see other people anyway, only the monsters we make of them.
COLSON WHITEHEAD

A monster is a person who has stopped pretending.
COLSON WHITEHEAD

I was a skinny guy, but I was morbidly obese with doom.
COLSON WHITEHEAD

Freedom was a thing that shifted as you looked at it, the way a forest is dense with the trees up cl...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

He imagined a town called A. Around the communal fire they’re shaping arrowheads and carving tribu...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

I feel about my phone the way horror-movie ventriloquists feel about their dummies: It's smarter tha...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

The loneliness is the worst, because this knowledge is something that cannot be shared, only suffere...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

Why should anyone else have it easy. Spoken like a true New Yorker.
COLSON WHITEHEAD

He spills his guts, it was the last sip that sent him over the edge but she has her hands full with ...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

Tonight the song you always despised strides from the jukebox full-bodied and you hear the lyrics fo...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

People spare a minute or two relishing other people's setbacks before their own inadequacies distrac...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

Did you know that smiling politely burns up the same amount of calories as speaking your mind.
COLSON WHITEHEAD

Things are pretty much status quo with the sexual-tension friend.
COLSON WHITEHEAD

Three cheers for your rich interior life, may it serve you well come rent day.
COLSON WHITEHEAD

Wow, this crappy performance art is really making me feel not so terrible about my various emotional...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

Hipsters seek refuge in church, Our Lady of Perpetual Subculture.
COLSON WHITEHEAD

Sleep the sleep of the successful because somehow you made it through the day without anyone finding...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

Improbable as it may be, the day still has a few indignities left. The day waters down indignity wit...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

Optimism skipped out on the rent a while back, but the cynic in the penthouse won't leave until led ...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

Why not remove his desk, bring in a treadmill, hang a carrot from the ceiling and stop all pretense ...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

Try to forget bit by bit, it will be easier on you. Leave it behind. Then the plane tilts in its esc...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

When you talk about this trip, and you will, because it was quite a journey and you witnessed many t...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

Cherish your old apartments and pause for a moment when you pass them. Pay tribute, for they are the...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

The city knows you better than any living person because it has seen you when you are alone.
COLSON WHITEHEAD

Live every minute as if you are late for the last train.
COLSON WHITEHEAD

New York City does not hold our former selves against us. Perhaps we can extend the same courtesy.
COLSON WHITEHEAD

Maybe we become New Yorkers the day we realize that New York will go on without us.
COLSON WHITEHEAD

IF THEY THINK those two words New York will fix them, who are we to say otherwise.
COLSON WHITEHEAD

We can never make proper goodbyes. It was your last ride in a Checker cab and you had no warning. It...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

You are a New Yorker when what was there before is more real and solid than what is here now.
COLSON WHITEHEAD

But nobody wanted to speak on the true disposition of the world. And no one wanted to hear it...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

He told her that every one of her enemies, all the masters and overseers of her suffering, would be ...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

The almanac had a strange, soapy smell and made a cracking noise like fire as she turned the pages. ...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

White man trying to kill you slow every day, and sometimes trying to kill you fast. Why make it easy...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

The music stopped. The circle broke. Sometimes a slave will be lost in a brief eddy of liberation. I...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

It was a magnificent operation, from seed to bale, but not one of them could be prideful of their la...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

But we have all been branded even if you can't see it, inside if not without
COLSON WHITEHEAD

Men start off good and then the world makes them mean. The world is mean from the start and gets mea...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

As the years pass, Valentine observed, racial violence only becomes more vicious in its expression. ...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

The other patrollers were boys and men of bad character; the work attracted a type. In another count...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

The park sustained them, the green harbor they preserved as the town extended itself outward, block ...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

The only way to know how long you are lost in the darkness is to be saved from it.
COLSON WHITEHEAD

There was an order of misery, misery tucked inside miseries, and you were meant to keep track.
COLSON WHITEHEAD

Racial prejudice rotted one's faculties.
COLSON WHITEHEAD

Freedom was a community laboring for something lovely and rare.
COLSON WHITEHEAD

The world may be mean, but people don't have to be, not if they refuse.
COLSON WHITEHEAD

A plantation was a plantation; one might think one’s misfortunes distinct, but the true horror lay...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

She wasn’t surprised when his character revealed itself—if you waited long enough, it always did...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

If niggers were supposed to have their freedom, they wouldn't be in chains. If the red man was suppo...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

If you want to see what this nation is all about, you have to ride the rails. Look outside as you sp...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

Poetry and prayer put ideas in people’s heads that got them killed, distracting them from the ruth...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

Yet when his classmates put their blades to a colored cadaver, they did more for the cause of colore...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

Truth was a changing display in a shop window, manipulated by hands when you weren’t looking, allu...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

Cora didn't know what optimistic meant. She asked the other girls that night if they were familiar w...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

The whites came to this land for a fresh start and to escape the tyranny of their masters, just as t...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

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

Slavery is a sin when whites were put to the yoke, but not the African. All men are created equal, u...
COLSON WHITEHEAD

Weeks passed, but my Word-A-Day Calendar was stuck on "motherfucker.
COLSON WHITEHEAD

True courage is not the brutal force of vulgar heroes, but the firm resolve of virtue and reason.
WHITEHEAD

The church has been brought into the same value system as the world: fame, success, materialism and ...
CHUCK COLSON

Christians need to take the lead in educating people that children are gifts, as my autistic grandso...
CHARLES COLSON

Few things are so deadly as a misguided sense of compassion.
CHARLES COLSON

Hurricane Katrina was a wake-up call to this country . . . It wakes us up to the fact that our God i...
CHUCK COLSON

Three of those are in the Elk Mound School District. We don't know where all these people are coming...
BOB COLSON

I'm not sure that's a good place to be, but we're there.
BOB COLSON

The Elk Mound School District will not reflect the state trend.
BOB COLSON

He easily could have come to the officials responsible. If they hadn't acted then, he would resign, ...
CHUCK COLSON

We are not looking for power, ... We are not looking for prestige. We are here because we care very,...
CHUCK COLSON

May the Christian church never be regarded as a special interest group. We're here because we love o...
CHUCK COLSON

[Chuck's letters from the USS Mellette are full of him saying,] Brad Allen really got to me about re...
CHUCK COLSON

I never thought anybody in such a position of sensitivity in the Justice Department would breach con...
CHUCK COLSON

One reason we've been in a lot of close games is that we've had a problem coming out early in games ...
CHARLIE COLSON

Brock does so many things well on and off the court. In practices he teaches, he communicates and he...
CHARLIE COLSON

I'd walk over my own grandmother to re-elect Richard Nixon.
CHARLES COLSON

Hitting the billion dollar mark is the best incentive to keep going. The board of trustees understoo...
DEAN COLSON

All judges come with certain beliefs and life experiences and things like that. You have to be able ...
DEAN COLSON

It was apparent from the first day we were there that [Roberts] was an extraordinary intellect with ...
DEAN COLSON

His role was as a lawyer for a president who had an agenda. And he was trying to assist that preside...
DEAN COLSON

If you're a 27, 28-year-old lawyer, the idea of walking Capitol Hill for 30 minutes with a justice o...
DEAN COLSON

I learned one thing in Watergate: I was well-intentioned but rationalized illegal behavior. You cann...
CHARLES COLSON

All military events are always free, but there are limited seats. We encourage people to get those p...
ED COLSON

I think this is going to be an extremely enjoyable event and something totally different for our com...
ED COLSON

I couldn't be more excited about this. We worked for two years to have one of the Washington, D.C., ...
ED COLSON

I can work for the Lord in or out of prison.
CHARLES COLSON

The first 20 stories written about a public figure set the tone for the next 2,000 and it is almost ...
CHARLES COLSON

We are 45 minutes from an airport and four hours from L.A.. We've got a good-natured FedEx driver wh...
KAMREN COLSON

It was a great opportunity to show what can be done from a remote location.
KAMREN COLSON

It's not the biggest project we've ever done but it is the most exclusive.
KAMREN COLSON

He gave me the impression he took us seriously.
KAMREN COLSON

This is a way to help us grow and show people what we're capable of from our location. We sometimes ...
KAMREN COLSON

It's such an exclusive audience. It seems outrageous that all the people going to the Oscars will be...
KAMREN COLSON

But it's one of the most exclusive in terms of the audience that will be holding it in their hands, ...
KAMREN COLSON

We were pleasantly surprised - it's a dream come true for all of us. Historically, the provider of t...
KAMREN COLSON

Right away at the meeting they said they appreciated our initiative and were pleased with our submis...
KAMREN COLSON

The spirit of Dunkirk is something everyone grew up learning about. After Dunkirk, everyone came tog...
FIONN WHITEHEAD

You make yourself do the physical aspects for a Christopher Nolan film!
FIONN WHITEHEAD

I'm not really a green juice kind of guy. I like feeling downtrodden and worthless when I walk a...
FIONN WHITEHEAD

I like to think I'm fairly grounded, and I have friends who will very happily tell me if I'm...
FIONN WHITEHEAD

'HIM' is much more of a British, coming-of-age series, while 'Stranger Things' is ve...
FIONN WHITEHEAD

I don't really think much about how I would have fared in the Second World War. It's a topic...
FIONN WHITEHEAD

I think you can overthink dealing with fame. To an extent, you've got to put yourself out there,...
FIONN WHITEHEAD

My 'Dunkirk' co-star Harry Styles deals with some crazy fan stuff, but he's a very down-...
FIONN WHITEHEAD

There's a restaurant I go to whenever I can called The Richmond Cafe. It's a little Thai res...
FIONN WHITEHEAD

I knew it was called 'Dunkirk,' Christopher Nolan was directing it, and it was a war film. T...
FIONN WHITEHEAD

On a 60-mile stretch of road from Mutlaa, Kuwait, to Basra, Iraq, a convoy of more than 2,000 vehicl...
JOHN WHITEHEAD

Wisdom alone is true ambition's aim, wisdom the source of virtue, and of fame, obtained with lab...
WILLIAM WHITEHEAD

The only use of a knowledge of the past is to equip us for the present. The present contains all th...
ALFRED WHITEHEAD

The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.
ALFRED WHITEHEAD

What is morality in any given time or place? It is what the majority then and there happen to like, ...
ALFRED WHITEHEAD

Speech is human nature itself, with none of the artificiality of written language
ALFRED WHITEHEAD

Religion is the reaction of human nature to its search for God
ALFRED WHITEHEAD

The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a...
ALFRED WHITEHEAD

True courage is not the brutal force of vulgar heroes, but the firm resolve of virtue and reason.
ALFRED WHITEHEAD

So far as the mere imparting of information is concerned, no university has had any justification fo...
ALFRED WHITEHEAD

Without adventure civilization is in full decay
ALFRED WHITEHEAD

It is the business of the future to be dangerous; and it is among the merits of science that it equi...
ALFRED WHITEHEAD

Seek simplicity but distrust it.
A.N. WHITEHEAD

He really had good skills. I thought about how to bring him along slowly, yet capitalize on those sk...
BILL WHITEHEAD

It's kind of grandfatherly talk, but Neal is a very good boy. He doesn't want a lot of attention. Ye...
BILL WHITEHEAD

One of the things that is really unique about Neal is that, although he stretched out so fast and ev...
BILL WHITEHEAD

I never had to break up a fight or worry about someone getting upset with somebody else because some...
BILL WHITEHEAD

The strength of their team is absolutely to dribble penetrate. When a team allows them to dribble pe...
BILL WHITEHEAD

Northridge typically was quicker to loose stuff and was more alive than us. They played well and tha...
BILL WHITEHEAD

Just on paper, without seeing him play you would know he's a good player. When you watch him play, i...
BILL WHITEHEAD

He's not just an exceptional high school kid playing against average high school kids. He's an excep...
BILL WHITEHEAD

Sometimes we adults think that they're working and he's really just kind of playing. He's just doing...
BILL WHITEHEAD

With how good our league is, we still might be able to get a bye in the first round of the state tou...
BILL WHITEHEAD

I was an infantry officer in the Army from 1969 to 1971. Men in my platoon who had served time in Vi...
JOHN WHITEHEAD

It's an eye-opener for people to see how vulnerable they are.
CARL WHITEHEAD

But one of the things to note is in the FBI, we not only need to have that capability, we have to ha...
CARL WHITEHEAD

The threats we face are more diverse than ever.
CARL WHITEHEAD

That will really help with information sharing and investigations.
CARL WHITEHEAD

It's been a long time coming, and I think this will be a very positive thing for us and for the comm...
CARL WHITEHEAD

Unfortunately in Florida, we have our share of those types of cases where children are victims of th...
CARL WHITEHEAD

This is unfortunately a serious problem. It is a pervasive problem.
CARL WHITEHEAD

It was because of [Bishop's] abilities to get out and move the puck up the ice.
TIM WHITEHEAD

Ultimately, the teams will help us to develop a truly compelling design for the World Trade Center s...
JOHN WHITEHEAD

Under the English legal system you are innocent until you are shown to be Irish.
TED WHITEHEAD

He told me three weeks ago not to send anything else.
PAUL WHITEHEAD

What we perceive as the present is the vivid fringe of memory tinged with anticipation.
ALFRED WHITEHEAD

Yet we still have no idea what happened or where it even started, not even a description of a suspec...
KIMBERLEY WHITEHEAD

Older cars had those old vacuum windshield wiper systems, and when they went bad it was almost impos...
ROBBY WHITEHEAD

Tonight came down to the last whistle and we are fortunate to have advanced. We had our hands full t...
TIM WHITEHEAD

We didn't want to cry wolf. But I don't think the public generally realizes the predicament we're in...
RONALD WHITEHEAD

He might have been the best player among both teams. He is so strong on the puck. He's great at keep...
TIM WHITEHEAD

I would not go so far as to say that to construct a history of thought without a profound study of t...
A.N. WHITEHEAD

He is a fierce competitor. He loves to compete. When it comes to hockey he wants to win and his team...
TIM WHITEHEAD

His business died overnight. But he just shifted his focus to making power windows for those restori...
ROBBY WHITEHEAD

We had a body shop together, but he decided he wanted to start making the power windows. Conversion ...
ROBBY WHITEHEAD

Of an old tale which every schoolboy knows.
WILLIAM WHITEHEAD

Bring me a buyer and we will produce them a house in that range. There are plenty of builders in Mid...
GARY WHITEHEAD

It's a really tough job market for people my age. The openings just aren't there. A lot of the emplo...
GARY WHITEHEAD

I'm optimistic about eventually finding something, but it will be another 21 months before the degre...
GARY WHITEHEAD

A lot of these folks can't afford to find a new place that fast.
JANICE WHITEHEAD

Make sure your child is happy where they're going. If they're not happy, usually there is a problem.
JANICE WHITEHEAD

I've wrestled since I was 6 years old. I've gone through some of the most excruciating wrestling cam...
MIKE WHITEHEAD

John Kerry was a thorn in our flesh. He was very articulate, a credible leader of the opposition. He...
CHARLES W. COLSON

We should always pray with as much earnestness as those who expect everything from God; we should al...
CHARLES C. COLSON

When God wanted to defeat sin, His ultimate weapon was the sacrifice of His own Son. On Christmas Da...
CHARLES W. COLSON

For years in Washington, they've all ended the same way - perjury and obstruction of justice. I don'...
CHARLES W. COLSON

I can work for the Lord in or out of prison
CHARLES W. COLSON

Christians should never have a political party. It is a huge mistake to become married to an ideolog...
CHARLES W. COLSON

But all at once I realized that it was not my success God had used to enable me to help those in thi...
CHARLES W. COLSON

People who cannot restrain their own baser instincts, who cannot treat one another with civility, ar...
CHARLES W. COLSON

It's part of the buzz of the city among Christians. It wouldn't surprise me that it got to George Bu...
CHARLES W. COLSON

John Kerry was a thorn in our flesh. He was very articulate, a credible leader of the opposition. He...
CHARLES W. COLSON

The first 20 stories written about a public figure set the tone for the next 2,000 and it is almost ...
CHARLES W. COLSON

It is time for us Christians to face up to our responsibility for holiness. Too often we say we are ...
CHARLES W. COLSON

Civilizations can only be understood by those who are civilized.
ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD

If a dog jumps into your lap, it is because he is fond of you; but if a cat does the same thing, it ...
ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD

It takes an extraordinary intelligence to contemplate the obvious.
ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD

The vitality of thought is in adventure. Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them. Wh...
ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD

Our minds are finite, and yet even in these circumstances of finitude we are surrounded by possibili...
ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD

The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.
ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD

In formal logic, a contradiction is the signal of defeat, but in the evolution of real knowledge it ...
ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD

Ideas won't keep; something must be done about them.
ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD

Colson Whitehead

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