Gary Shteyngart quotes

I was very, very sick when I was growing up in Russia. The ambulance constantly came to our house. I had horrible asthma that is easily treated in America, but they didn't even have inhalers back in Russia. (Gary Shteyngart)

I feel safe with him because he is so not my ideal and I feel like I can be myself because I'm not in love with him.

Gary Shteyngart

Reading is entering into the consciousness of another human being.

Gary Shteyngart

Remember this... develop a sense of nostalgia for something, or you'll never figure out what's important.

Gary Shteyngart

Communications devices were always used to effect change, to effect revolution. Telephone, telegraph - these all seemed like very big enhancements at the time.

Gary Shteyngart

You could drown a kitten in her blue eyes.

Gary Shteyngart

Silence has been destroyed, but also the idea that it's important to learn how another person thinks, to enter the mind of another person. The whole idea of empathy is gone. 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

If you stop thinking, if you stop wondering, you die.

Gary Shteyngart

In a strange way, I expected Russia to become more like America since the Soviet Union collapsed, but the reverse is true. America has become more like Russia: a kleptocratic society.

Gary Shteyngart

Good fiction makes me turn off all the other parts of my brain, so that I become quiet and submissive, entirely at the mercy of the work at hand.

Gary Shteyngart

I read real books. On paper. You know, those printed books? I feel like this is the last thing I do to support my industry. I think they smell great, too. (Gary Shteyngart)

If I still lived in Russia, I'd be dead... or a really effective oligarch.

Gary Shteyngart

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

Forget the fountain of youth, pal of mine. You can live to be a thousand, and it won't matter. Mediocrities like you deserve immortality.

Gary Shteyngart

I just want fiction to remain a vital force for entertainment and not just for contemplation. Both things can exist.

Gary Shteyngart

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

The love I felt for her on that train ride had a capital and provinces, parishes and a Vatican, an orange planet and many sullen moons -- it was systemic and it was complete.

Gary Shteyngart

By reading this message you are denying its existence and implying consent.

Gary Shteyngart

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

A lot of the ways of advertising a book - the cover, whether somebody sees it on a subway or sees it in a bookstore - those things are going to rapidly diminish as we move to an electronic model.

Gary Shteyngart

I write almost entirely in bed or on a couch with my feet up on the coffee table. I feel most creative when I'm looking out the window, and my bed and couch have nice views of the New York skyline. (Gary Shteyngart)

I don't have many possessions, apart from my books.

Gary Shteyngart

That's what I always liked about science fiction - you can make the world end. Humour is my multiple warhead delivery system.

Gary Shteyngart

Alcohol causes a lot of problems, and then to solve these problems, you drink more.

Gary Shteyngart

All of my books have an element of a man who is in love with somebody and needs them desperately, not just for procreation but for being able to fully unbosom himself. He only feels comfortable discussing things with women. Which is funny, because 80 percent of readers are women!

Gary Shteyngart

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