Quote

That's what tyrants do, I guess. They make you covet their attention they make you confuse attention for mercy.

Gary Shteyngart

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Gary Shteyngart
Age: 52
Born: 1972
Born: July 5
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
St. Petersburg
Guess
Attention
Make
Covet
Confuse
Tyrants
Mercy

More quotes by Gary Shteyngart

Image
People always write on my Facebook that they've seen somebody they thought was me on the subway, and I was cursing badly.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
Reading is entering into the consciousness of another human being.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
My parents were kind enough to spend hours talking to me.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
If my mother hadn't tried to sell me chicken Kiev cutlets for $1.40 after I graduated from college, maybe I would've been the lawyer she wanted me to be.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
We are now part of this giant machine where every second we have to take out a device and contribute our thoughts and opinions.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
You can't have a Russian household without vodka. It's just something to wash everything down with. I can't remember a time when I didn't drink vodka, either in Russia or here. I don't think there's ever a wrong time to start drinking it. My ancestors drank it, and if I ever have any children, they'll be drinking it.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
I love librarians more than any other people in the world. When I was an immigrant kid, they’ve made me feel like a human being and they gave me books that taught me English.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
Remember this... develop a sense of nostalgia for something, or you'll never figure out what's important.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
She was clothed entirely in two large swatches of leather, the leather fake and shiny in a self-mocking way, absolutely correct for 1993, the first year when mocking the mainstream had become the mainstream.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
That's what I always liked about science fiction - you can make the world end. Humour is my multiple warhead delivery system.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
Let's see if I can write about something other than my heart.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
One of the goals of analysis is you become your own analyst. You continue the process even if you're not in therapy, whether you continue the process by walking down the street thinking about things or whether you continue the process, as I do, by writing about them.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
In America, the distance between wanting something and having it delivered to your living room is not terribly great.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
All of my books have an element of a man who is in love with somebody and needs them desperately, not just for procreation but for being able to fully unbosom himself. He only feels comfortable discussing things with women. Which is funny, because 80 percent of readers are women!
Gary Shteyngart
Image
I felt the weakness of these books, their immateriality, how they had failed to change the world, and I didn't want to sully myself with their weakness anymore.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
I'm the fortieth ugliest man in this bar. But so what! So what!... Isn't this how people used to fall in love?
Gary Shteyngart
Image
The only way to write about right now is to write about the future.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
In contravention of my belief that any life ending in death is essentially pointless, I needed my friends to open up that plastic bag and take one last look at me. Someone had to remember me, if only for a few more minutes in the vast silent waiting room of time.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
American fiction is good. It would be nice if somebody read it.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
I have a great memory. And actually, I remember Russia in some ways better than I remember Queens.
Gary Shteyngart