Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Gary Shteyngart
Age: 52
Born: 1972
Born: July 5
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
St. Petersburg
Writers
Growing
Death
Really
Good
Brink
Always
Mortality
Think
Lets
Thinking
Clearly

More quotes by Gary Shteyngart

Image
My parents were kind enough to spend hours talking to me.
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
I was really not a good student, and I felt that shame every day. That's one of the reasons I started smoking pot and drinking daily.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
Italy has sun and tomatoes, and Russia just has real problems.
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
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
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
That's what tyrants do, I guess. They make you covet their attention they make you confuse attention for mercy.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
Let's see if I can write about something other than my heart.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
Remember this... develop a sense of nostalgia for something, or you'll never figure out what's important.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
Getting out of Russia was the best thing my parents did. I mean, that country will never amount to anything.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
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
Image
You could drown a kitten in her blue eyes.
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
We are now part of this giant machine where every second we have to take out a device and contribute our thoughts and opinions.
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
American fiction is good. It would be nice if somebody read it.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
Every returning New Yorker asks the question: Is this still my city? I have a ready answer, cloaked in obstinate despair: It is. And if it's not, I will love it all the more. I will love it to the point where it becomes mine again.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
If I still lived in Russia, I'd be dead... or a really effective oligarch.
Gary Shteyngart
Image
Asthmatic immigrant learns to breathe by writing.
Gary Shteyngart