Freaky things happen all the time in the world. I suppose everything has to happen for the first time at some point. John Jeremiah Sullivan More Quotes by John Jeremiah Sullivan More Quotes From John Jeremiah Sullivan Thinking you're a genius is death. John Jeremiah Sullivan you genius death thinking I want to stay in touch with what I have in common with my subjects, with the places where are equally implicated with whatever is wrong with the culture. John Jeremiah Sullivan stay wrong want culture The initial research will be very indiscriminate. I do a lot of reading, buy a stack of books and read and digest them, and then I start doing phone interviews and archival research and then the travelling. John Jeremiah Sullivan phone start research reading I don't read a lot of books that were published after 1755. One thing about having friends in New York who belong to the literary world, however, is that I have a steady stream of books coming to the house. John Jeremiah Sullivan new friends house world Going to any place that you view as more politically oppressed than your own country, there's a weird tendency to assume that the whole existence is determined minute by minute by the political reality, but of course, that's not the case for any of us. John Jeremiah Sullivan view place you reality