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The only way to write about right now is to write about the future.

Gary Shteyngart

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Gary Shteyngart
Age: 52
Born: 1972
Born: July 5
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
St. Petersburg
Way
Future
Write
Right
Writing

More quotes by Gary Shteyngart

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Michigan, with its delicious American name. How lucky one must be to live there.
Gary Shteyngart
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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.
Gary Shteyngart
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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.
Gary Shteyngart
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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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The fading light is us, and we are, for a moment so brief (...) beautiful.
Gary Shteyngart
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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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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
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American fiction is good. It would be nice if somebody read it.
Gary Shteyngart
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Asthmatic immigrant learns to breathe by writing.
Gary Shteyngart
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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.
Gary Shteyngart
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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.
Gary Shteyngart
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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.
Gary Shteyngart
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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.
Gary Shteyngart
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If I still lived in Russia, I'd be dead... or a really effective oligarch.
Gary Shteyngart
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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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I have a great memory. And actually, I remember Russia in some ways better than I remember Queens.
Gary Shteyngart
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The best thing about the iPhone is this that tells me where I am all the time. Theres never a need to feel lost anymore.
Gary Shteyngart
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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.
Gary Shteyngart
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I have my own dying empire to contend with, and I do not wish for any other.
Gary Shteyngart
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I was a jackass in many ways. I projected that cruelty towards others, that kid whose hand I was wringing. If I could have hurt a hundred weaklings - weaker than me, and I was already very weak - I would. I was dying to hurt somebody, to pay it forward.
Gary Shteyngart