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

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

— Colson Whitehead

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

— Colson Whitehead

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

— Colson Whitehead

The doctor was a frequent visitor at Miss Trumbull's establishment, preferring it to the Lanchester house, whose girls had a saturnine disposition in his opinion, as if imported from Maine or other gloom-loving provinces.

— Colson Whitehead

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

The only time "early bloomer" has ever been applied to me is vis-à-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

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

There was one moment of intersection, when the topic of hate-watching came up. "Why do you watch TV shows--and keep watching them--if you don't like them?" Terrence asked. Simple: Some days, all you have is gazing upon horror, and the small comfort of being surprised that it is not yours.

— Colson Whitehead

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