Getting out of Russia was the best thing my parents did. I mean, that country will never amount to anything. Gary Shteyngart More Quotes by Gary Shteyngart More Quotes From Gary Shteyngart Every returning New Yorker asks the question: Is this still my city? I have a ready answer, cloaked in obstinate despair: It is. And if it's not, I will love it all the more. I will love it to the point where it becomes mine again. Gary Shteyngart despair cities answers Russia tried to introduce beer as kind of the new vodka - and it's working with younger people in major cities - but you can have ten shots of vodka and be perfectly okay. If I had ten beers, I would be liquidated. Gary Shteyngart russia cities beer I have my own dying empire to contend with, and I do not wish for any other. Gary Shteyngart empires dying wish 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 iphone lost needs 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 mortality growing-up thinking I write five, six days a week. The thing is capturing the voice. I feel like I've been perfecting one voice - in different iterations, sure, but the Russian-ness has always been the undercurrent. Gary Shteyngart six voice writing I am born hungry. Ravenous. I want to eat the world, and I can never be satiated. Gary Shteyngart hungry want world We know summer is the height of of being alive. We don't believe in God or the prospect of an afterlife mostly, so we know that we're only given eighty summers or so per lifetime, and each one has to be better then the last, has to encompass a trip to that arts center up at Bard, a seemingly mellow game of badminton over at some yahoo's Vermont cottage, and a cool, wet, slightly dangerous kayak trip down an unforgiving river. Otherwise, how would you know that you have lived your summertime best? What is you missed out on some morsel of shaded nirvana? Gary Shteyngart summer believe art 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 empathy ideas thinking 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 subway writing people That's what tyrants do, I guess. They make you covet their attention; they make you confuse attention for mercy. Gary Shteyngart tyrants mercy attention America should treasure its rare, true original voices and Mark Leyner is one of them. So treasure him already, you bastards! Gary Shteyngart treasure voice america My mother cranes her neck. Her ability to be fascinated by things is her best gift to me. Gary Shteyngart cranes necks mother I love Paul Giamatti - God, that man is like a walking Chekhov. His connection to humanity is unbelievable, and those feelings of low self-esteem - the way that all comes together on the screen? Delicious. Gary Shteyngart self-esteem feelings men 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 telephones enhancement communication I reveled in the smallness, the coziness of an upstairs bedroom in a traditional American Cape Cod house the half-floor that forces you to duck, to feel small and naive again, ready for anything, dying for love, your body a chimney filled with odd, black smoke. These square, squat, awkward rooms are like a fifty-square-foot paean to teenage-hood, to ripeness, to the first and last taste of youth. Gary Shteyngart teenage ducks love-you I just want fiction to remain a vital force for entertainment and not just for contemplation. Both things can exist. Gary Shteyngart entertainment want fiction I wish I were stronger and more secure in myself so that I could really spend my life with a guy like Lenny. Because he has a different kind of strength than Joshie. He has the strength of his sweet tuna arms. He has the strength of putting his nose in my hair and calling it home. He has the strength to cry when I go down on him. Who IS Lenny? Who DOES that? Who will ever open up to me like that again? No one. Because it's too dangerous. Lenny is a dangerous man. Joshie is more powerful, but Lenny is much more dangerous. Gary Shteyngart powerful home sweet Asthmatic immigrant learns to breathe by writing. Gary Shteyngart immigrants breathe writing 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 growing-up russia america
