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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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Gary Shteyngart
Age: 52
Born: 1972
Born: July 5
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
St. Petersburg
Would
Lawyer
Sell
Sells
Tried
Kiev
College
Graduated
Maybe
Chicken
Mother
Chickens
Wanted
Hadn

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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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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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The radio station was playing Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, a sure sign that things were much worse than they appeared.
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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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The fading light is us, and we are, for a moment so brief (...) beautiful.
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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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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.
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Getting out of Russia was the best thing my parents did. I mean, that country will never amount to anything.
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Italy has sun and tomatoes, and Russia just has real problems.
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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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We are now part of this giant machine where every second we have to take out a device and contribute our thoughts and opinions.
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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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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.
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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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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 just want fiction to remain a vital force for entertainment and not just for contemplation. Both things can exist.
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Michigan, with its delicious American name. How lucky one must be to live there.
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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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