Quote

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.

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
Book
Need
Introspection
Needs
Connect
Time
Requires
People
Communicate
Constant
Read
Away

More quotes by Gary Shteyngart

Image
freedom is anathema to dreams nurtured in captivity.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
Alcohol causes a lot of problems, and then to solve these problems, you drink more.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
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
Image
If I still lived in Russia, I'd be dead... or a really effective oligarch.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
Reading is entering into the consciousness of another human being.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
I have a great memory. And actually, I remember Russia in some ways better than I remember Queens.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
Remember this... develop a sense of nostalgia for something, or you'll never figure out what's important.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
American fiction is good. It would be nice if somebody read it.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
That's what tyrants do, I guess. They make you covet their attention they make you confuse attention for mercy.
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
I love Paul Giamatti - God, that man is like a walking Chekhov. His connection to humanity is unbelievable, and those feelings of low self-esteem - the way that all comes together on the screen? Delicious.
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
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
Michigan, with its delicious American name. How lucky one must be to live there.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
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
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
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
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
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
Image
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