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

More quotes by 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.
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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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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.
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I write almost entirely in bed or on a couch with my feet up on the coffee table. I feel most creative when Im looking out the window, and my bed and couch have nice views of the New York skyline.
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Life for young American college graduates is a festive affair. Free of having to support their families, they mostly have gay parties on rooftops where they reflect at length upon their quirky electronic childhoods and sometimes kiss each other on the lips and neck.
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You are not what you want. You are what wants you back.
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If I still lived in Russia, I'd be dead... or a really effective oligarch.
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It is a capital insult in this country not to make love to a naked woman, even if she is related to you.
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I don't have many possessions, apart from my books.
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That's what tyrants do, I guess. They make you covet their attention they make you confuse attention for mercy.
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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.
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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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People always write on my Facebook that they've seen somebody they thought was me on the subway, and I was cursing badly.
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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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That's what I always liked about science fiction - you can make the world end. Humour is my multiple warhead delivery system.
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The radio station was playing Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, a sure sign that things were much worse than they appeared.
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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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By reading this message you are denying its existence and implying consent.
Gary Shteyngart
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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
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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