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You are not what you want. You are what wants you back.

Gary Shteyngart

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Gary Shteyngart
Age: 52
Born: 1972
Born: July 5
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
St. Petersburg
Back
Wants

More quotes by Gary Shteyngart

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We're people of the Orient. We know everything. And what we don't know, we can sense.
Gary Shteyngart
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If you read only one memoir by a disaffected, urban, 20-something Jewish girl this year, make it this one. Shukert rocks the lulav.
Gary Shteyngart
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The radio station was playing Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, a sure sign that things were much worse than they appeared.
Gary Shteyngart
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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!
Gary Shteyngart
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My parents were kind enough to spend hours talking to me.
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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By reading this message you are denying its existence and implying consent.
Gary Shteyngart
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Vodka is a wonderful drink. You can drink so much of it without being as hung over as you would if you were drinking one of the brown liquors - the whiskeys and such. It's a great drink to go with appetizers.
Gary Shteyngart
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Michigan, with its delicious American name. How lucky one must be to live there.
Gary Shteyngart
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Remember this... develop a sense of nostalgia for something, or you'll never figure out what's important.
Gary Shteyngart
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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.
Gary Shteyngart
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That's what tyrants do, I guess. They make you covet their attention they make you confuse attention for mercy.
Gary Shteyngart
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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
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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
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I don't have many possessions, apart from my books.
Gary Shteyngart
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A lot of the ways of advertising a book - the cover, whether somebody sees it on a subway or sees it in a bookstore - those things are going to rapidly diminish as we move to an electronic model.
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.
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.
Gary Shteyngart
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Reading is entering into the consciousness of another human being.
Gary Shteyngart
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She took my hand and pulled me after her, her shoulders giving off a sweet peppermint concoction that the bodies of young women sometimes produce to make my life more difficult.
Gary Shteyngart