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Getting out of Russia was the best thing my parents did. I mean, that country will never amount to anything.

Gary Shteyngart

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Gary Shteyngart
Age: 52
Born: 1972
Born: July 5
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
St. Petersburg
Parent
Getting
Anything
Best
Country
Mean
Russia
Thing
Parents
Never
Amount

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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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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.
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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.
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If I still lived in Russia, I'd be dead... or a really effective oligarch.
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Let's see if I can write about something other than my heart.
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Italy has sun and tomatoes, and Russia just has real problems.
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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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I have my own dying empire to contend with, and I do not wish for any other.
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By reading this message you are denying its existence and implying consent.
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You could drown a kitten in her blue eyes.
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I'm the fortieth ugliest man in this bar. But so what! So what!... Isn't this how people used to fall in love?
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My parents were constantly afraid they would lose their jobs. The idea that we were always a paycheck away from disaster was drilled into me.
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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.
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In America, the distance between wanting something and having it delivered to your living room is not terribly great.
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Alcohol causes a lot of problems, and then to solve these problems, you drink more.
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freedom is anathema to dreams nurtured in captivity.
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American fiction is good. It would be nice if somebody read it.
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Before my first novel, I was dating a woman who later went to prison for bashing a guy with a hammer.
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You are not what you want. You are what wants you back.
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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.
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