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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

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Gary Shteyngart
Age: 52
Born: 1972
Born: July 5
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
St. Petersburg
World
Failed
Anymore
Weakness
Books
Felt
Didn
Change
Book
Sully

More quotes by Gary Shteyngart

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My parents were kind enough to spend hours talking to me.
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I always think that good writers should be growing up on the brink of death - it really lets them see mortality very clearly.
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American fiction is good. It would be nice if somebody read it.
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Italy has sun and tomatoes, and Russia just has real problems.
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The only way to write about right now is to write about the future.
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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.
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I have a great memory. And actually, I remember Russia in some ways better than I remember Queens.
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We're people of the Orient. We know everything. And what we don't know, we can sense.
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Michigan, with its delicious American name. How lucky one must be to live there.
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Remember this... develop a sense of nostalgia for something, or you'll never figure out what's important.
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That's what I always liked about science fiction - you can make the world end. Humour is my multiple warhead delivery system.
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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!
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Good fiction makes me turn off all the other parts of my brain, so that I become quiet and submissive, entirely at the mercy of the work at hand.
Gary Shteyngart
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You want to read a book? That requires introspection. It requires time away from people and time away from the constant need to communicate and to connect.
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freedom is anathema to dreams nurtured in captivity.
Gary Shteyngart
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Don't be pretentious is my first advice to young writers. This is the big problem - just because you're getting an MFA doesn't mean you have to write for the Academy. Be true to your personality. Don't temper your personality down with words. Don't build defensive fortresses around yourself with words - words are your friends.
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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
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One should learn from a book. Books have a lot to teach us. They have a lot of empathy to impart to us, but they should also be fun. This stuff is fun! You shouldn't pick up a book and say, Oh my god, I'm gonna better myself by reading this. You may better yourself by reading this, but who cares? Just have fun.
Gary Shteyngart
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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.
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By reading this message you are denying its existence and implying consent.
Gary Shteyngart