Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Gary Shteyngart
Age: 52
Born: 1972
Born: July 5
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
St. Petersburg
Like
Kids
Librarians
World
Human
Immigrant
People
Humans
Librarian
Book
Immigrants
Feel
English
Feels
Gave
Made
Taught
Love
Books

More quotes by Gary Shteyngart

Image
freedom is anathema to dreams nurtured in captivity.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
I have some memories of certain things that happened in high school when I was stoned out of my mind, but I talked with other people about them, and I trusted the aggregated memories.
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
By reading this message you are denying its existence and implying consent.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
Reading is entering into the consciousness of another human being.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
Italy has sun and tomatoes, and Russia just has real problems.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
If I still lived in Russia, I'd be dead... or a really effective oligarch.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
I just want fiction to remain a vital force for entertainment and not just for contemplation. Both things can exist.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
Russia tried to introduce beer as kind of the new vodka - and it's working with younger people in major cities - but you can have ten shots of vodka and be perfectly okay. If I had ten beers, I would be liquidated.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
I was a jackass in many ways. I projected that cruelty towards others, that kid whose hand I was wringing. If I could have hurt a hundred weaklings - weaker than me, and I was already very weak - I would. I was dying to hurt somebody, to pay it forward.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
Asthmatic immigrant learns to breathe by writing.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
Let's see if I can write about something other than my heart.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
The only way to write about right now is to write about the future.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
It is a capital insult in this country not to make love to a naked woman, even if she is related to you.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
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.
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
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
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
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
Before my first novel, I was dating a woman who later went to prison for bashing a guy with a hammer.
Gary Shteyngart