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To his surprise he also discovered that it was possible to be good at what you had little interest in, just as it had been possible to be bad at something, whether painting or poetry, that you cared about a great deal.

Richard Russo

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Richard Russo
Age: 75
Born: 1949
Born: July 15
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Johnstown
New York
Littles
Poetry
Deal
Little
Painting
Great
Deals
Something
Possible
Good
Interest
Cared
Whether
Discovered
Also
Surprise

More quotes by Richard Russo

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America has always been a nation of small places, and as we lose them, we're losing part of ourselves.
Richard Russo
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I've never written nearly as much about place as people seem to think I do. I just write about class.
Richard Russo
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They stayed, many of them, because staying was easier and less scary than leaving.
Richard Russo
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Sleep is over-rated. Have you ever noticed how it's always recommended to people anybody with half a brain can see need to wake up?
Richard Russo
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When authors who write literary fiction begin to write screenplays, everybody assumes that's the end. Here's another who's never going to write well again.
Richard Russo
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If there's an enduring theme in my work, it's probably the effects of class on American life.
Richard Russo
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Steve Yarbrough's Safe from the Neighbors will take your breath away. Ambitious, funny, sad, smart, and beautifully crafted, it's everything a novel should be.
Richard Russo
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At the risk of appearing disingenuous, I don't really think of myself as 'writing humor.' I'm simply reporting on the world I observe, which is frequently hilarious.
Richard Russo
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I'm delighted by how Nobody's Fool turned out. It was a rare movie.
Richard Russo
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I want that which is hilarious and that which is heartbreaking to occupy the same territory in the book because I think they very often occupy the same territory in life, much as we try to separate them.
Richard Russo
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Go to it. Be bold. Be true. Be kind. Rotate your tires. Don't drink so much. There aren't going to be enough liver transplants to go around.
Richard Russo
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People sometimes get in the habit of being loyal to a mistake.
Richard Russo
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Stories worked much the same way . . . A false note at the beginning was much more costly than one nearer the end because early errors were part of the foundation.
Richard Russo
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To weigh and evaluate a vast grid of information, much of it meaningless, and to arrive at sensible, if erroneous, conclusions, is a skill not to be sneezed at.
Richard Russo
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To expect reason is where the fallacy lies.
Richard Russo
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Knowing and knowing what to do about it were two different things.
Richard Russo
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I think a lot of what is going on with kids who get pushed too far and attempt either murder or suicide is that they are trying to deal with their own non-existence for the people who are supposed to care most for them.
Richard Russo
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He looks like he could be taken in a fight. Not by me, but by somebody. Not anyone in Humanities, probably.
Richard Russo
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By ignoring a lot of American culture you can write more interesting stories. Unfortunately, if you were writing about America as it is, you'd be writing about a lot of people sitting in front of television sets.
Richard Russo
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Movies have to handle time very efficiently. They're about stringing scenes together in the present. Novels aren't necessarily about that.
Richard Russo