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Asthmatic immigrant learns to breathe by writing.

Gary Shteyngart

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Gary Shteyngart
Age: 52
Born: 1972
Born: July 5
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
St. Petersburg
Writing
Asthmatic
Immigrant
Learns
Immigrants
Breathe

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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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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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If I still lived in Russia, I'd be dead... or a really effective oligarch.
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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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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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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 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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American fiction is good. It would be nice if somebody read it.
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I have a great memory. And actually, I remember Russia in some ways better than I remember Queens.
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She took my hand and pulled me after her, her shoulders giving off a sweet peppermint concoction that the bodies of young women sometimes produce to make my life more difficult.
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You can't have a Russian household without vodka. It's just something to wash everything down with. I can't remember a time when I didn't drink vodka, either in Russia or here. I don't think there's ever a wrong time to start drinking it. My ancestors drank it, and if I ever have any children, they'll be drinking it.
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My parents were kind enough to spend hours talking to me.
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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.
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By reading this message you are denying its existence and implying consent.
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I don't have many possessions, apart from my books.
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I have some memories of certain things that happened in high school when I was stoned out of my mind, but I talked with other people about them, and I trusted the aggregated memories.
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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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The radio station was playing Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, a sure sign that things were much worse than they appeared.
Gary Shteyngart
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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.
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You are not what you want. You are what wants you back.
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