A biography for Cord Jeffersonhasn’t been written yet.
“There's an audience and market for depictions of Black life that are as broad and as deep as any other depictions of people's lives.”
“Where some see the Super Bowl, I see young black men risking their bodies, minds and futures for the joy and wealth of old white men.”
“Anymore, I don't just not watch sports; I dislike them in a very visceral way.”
“Beware bros trying to inform you what they 'deserve.' A hurt man can be a handful - but a hurt man inspired by the conviction that he's owed something can be dangerous.”
“Cutoff culture,' 'the friendzone:' these are just neologisms used by men to mask or soften the reality that they have been - and have the right to be - rejected by women. They're attitudes stemming from the assumption that men are owed something by women.”
“I promised myself I would never own a car again after moving to New York in the mid-aughts and living without the hassles of having a car - the traffic, the tickets, the tow trucks.”
“Something I really align with, particularly when it comes to 'Watchmen' and 'Erasure,' that really resonated with me in both of those stories, is the idea of hiding yourself. And lying to everybody around you about who you actually are as a person.”
“As a defense attorney in Ohio, my dad would accept food in lieu of money from his poorer clients, and work into the night as if he were being paid in bullion instead of sweet potato pies.”
“I'm awful at skiing, made slow and hesitant by an unyielding and morbid fear that I will propel into a tree or somehow shatter my femur in a devastating tumble.”
“If you're a woman, if you're a person of color, if you're queer, the 1930s were terrible.”
“Every time I sit down and write, I'm like, 'This is a miserable experience. What a life I've made for myself. Why am I doing this? What do I think I'm trying to accomplish here?' And then as soon as I'm done, I'm like, 'Oh, that was the best thing ever.'”
“I've got really severe anxiety.”
“I just want to keep making stuff.”
“I've never understood haute cuisine. I've never even understood spending in excess of 15 minutes - or $15 - procuring something to eat.”
“I love '12 Years a Slave.' I really like 'Django Unchained.' I want to make clear that I'm not saying these movies should not exist.”
“I had a horrible 2020. Besides the Covid thing, I had a big professional failing: I came very close to getting a TV show on the air, and at the last minute it was killed.”
“Almost as soon as I started reading 'Erasure,' I wanted to adapt it.”
“I love 'The Wire' so much, and think it's masterful on so many levels.”
“The idea that America used to be great is, in the minds of a lot of people who were oppressed by America, and remain oppressed by America, just a nostalgia that we don't get to share in.”
“I do not believe in things like ghosts or astrology or gods who care if you eat shellfish, so I feel unwaveringly confident in saying that the world is not going to end in 2012.”