{"author":"Colson Whitehead","author_id":"Colson+Whitehead","total_quotes":63,"quotes":[{"text":"You swallow hard when you discover that the old coffee shop is now a chain pharmacy, that the place where you first kissed so-and-so is now a discount electronics retailer, that where you bought this very jacket is now rubble behind a blue plywood fence and a future office building. Damage has been done to your city. You say, ''It happened overnight.'' But of course it didn't. Your pizza parlor, his shoeshine stand, her hat store: when they were here, we neglected them. For all you know, the place closed down moments after the last time you walked out the door. (Ten months ago? Six years? Fifteen? You can't remember, can you?) And there have been five stores in that spot before the travel agency. Five different neighborhoods coming and going between then and now, other people's other cities. Or 15, 25, 100 neighborhoods. Thousands of people pass that storefront every day, each one haunting the streets of his or her own New York, not one of them seeing the same thing.","author":"Colson Whitehead","tags":["chain-stores","change","consumerism","individuality","loss","memories","modern-society","mom-and-pop-stores","neighborhoods","new-york-city","retail","transience"],"id":6042,"author_id":"Colson+Whitehead"},{"text":"As if these daily humiliations and sacrifices mean something, are tallied by the ones who keep the books. Tomorrow we pick up where we left off. Sleep tight. Sleep deep. Sleep the sleep of the successful because somehow you made it through the day without anyone finding out that you are a complete fraud.","author":"Colson Whitehead","tags":["new-york-city"],"id":12727,"author_id":"Colson+Whitehead"},{"text":"Maybe we become New Yorkers the day we realize that New York will go on without us.","author":"Colson Whitehead","tags":["new-york-city"],"id":17432,"author_id":"Colson+Whitehead"},{"text":"It is failure that guides evolution; perfection provides no incentive for improvement, and nothing is perfect.","author":"Colson Whitehead","tags":["evolution","evolutionre","improvement","perfection"],"id":22289,"author_id":"Colson+Whitehead"},{"text":"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.","author":"Colson Whitehead","tags":["control","hell","redemption"],"id":26612,"author_id":"Colson+Whitehead"},{"text":"Whoever has the better stuff wins. Sound familiar, American lackeys of late-stage capitalism?","author":"Colson Whitehead","tags":["belongings","capitalism","possessions"],"id":32886,"author_id":"Colson+Whitehead"},{"text":"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.","author":"Colson Whitehead","tags":["athletes","athleticism","laziness","sports","unathleticism"],"id":34358,"author_id":"Colson+Whitehead"},{"text":"As it often did when I thought about chicken wings and entropy, my mind turned to Emerson. 'Life is a journey, not a destination.' Now that was one stone-cold motherfucker who was not afraid to deliver the truth: After the torments of the journey, you have been well-prepared for the agonies of the destination.","author":"Colson Whitehead","tags":["destinations","entropy","journeys","ralph-waldo-emerson","travel"],"id":48366,"author_id":"Colson+Whitehead"},{"text":"In keeping with my family's affection for doomed product lines and hexed formats, we purchased a Betamax. The year before, we'd bought a TRS-80 instead of an Apple II, and in due course we'd unbox Mattel's Intellivision, instead of Atari's legendary gizmo. This was good training for a writer, for the sooner you accept the fact that you are a deluded idiot who is always out of step with reality the better off you will be.","author":"Colson Whitehead","tags":["betamax","formats","intellivision","products","reality","trs-80","writers","writing"],"id":61455,"author_id":"Colson+Whitehead"},{"text":"Cherish your old apartments and pause for a moment when you pass them. Pay tribute, for they are the caretakers for your reinventions.","author":"Colson Whitehead","tags":["new-york-city"],"id":79931,"author_id":"Colson+Whitehead"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":63,"pages":7,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}