I know a lot of people in the city, at all levels, horizontally and vertically - and that to me is a privilege, to me as a person but also a writer. I've dined with billionaires, and I play soccer with busboys. Aleksandar Hemon More Quotes by Aleksandar Hemon More Quotes From Aleksandar Hemon I dont make notes for myself because I either lose them or they make no sense to me at all. I once found a piece of paper with the note: everything. Apparently I made a note to myself not to forget everything! Aleksandar Hemon forget-everythingpiecespaper A particular piece of music attaches itself to the piece I'm writing, and there is nothing else I can listen to. Every day I return to the same space to write, the music providing both the walls and the pictures on the walls. Aleksandar Hemon wallspacewriting Sometimes I don't write at all. Someone once asked me, "What do you do when you're not writing?" And I said, "I idle." Aleksandar Hemon saidwritingsometimes Where can you go from nowhere, except deeper into nowhere? Aleksandar Hemon deeper Time does nothing but hand you down shabbier and older things. Aleksandar Hemon doehands It was always clear to me that I would have to earn my readers, some I would have to find, some to create. Aleksandar Hemon clearreader In some way there is no real life. It's always the story of your life that you're living. Aleksandar Hemon real-liferealstories There's no bad writing; you did something. I was operating inside language, and I did something. I'm not ashamed of it. Aleksandar Hemon bad-writinglanguagewriting I have a hard time imagining a country or a government where I would say, "Oh, this is good," where I could live under a government that I respect for a day or a week, even to see what it feels like. Aleksandar Hemon hard-timesgovernmentcountry I don't like having a teaching job - office hours and conferences and committees and bosses and all that - but I tend to enjoy teaching, and I design the course in such a way that there'll be pleasure in that. Aleksandar Hemon officeteachingjobs Despite all that I know rationally, and everything that I can put into words, I can say that I have difficulty giving up the notion of the nobility of art. Aleksandar Hemon difficultygiving-upart You have to suspend thinking in narratives. The moment you are conscious of yourself the gap opens up. And in this gap, stories are generated. Aleksandar Hemon gapsnarrativethinking I'm a dilettante by temperament. I don't have any expectation. Aleksandar Hemon dilettantestemperamentexpectations I think it's interesting, from a creative point of view, to have witnessed the loss of consciousness on a national level and on a cultural level - Bush had 91 percent support in the polls after 9/11. We wanted to kick some ass! Aleksandar Hemon viewslossthinking I've never had a stupid student in my life. I never look down on my students. I never thought, "Look at these people." I might argue with them and I think that some of them might have misconceptions - that they might be infected by the intellectual laziness that is the foundation of American popular culture, and of capitalism, if you wish. But part of my job as a teacher is to work with that - against that. Aleksandar Hemon stupidteacherjobs Chicago has very few public spaces where people are encouraged to get together. It's partly to prevent riots, and also to segregate a city with a history of racial segregation. Aleksandar Hemon spacecitiespeople If I represent the world as it is as harmonious, that's a political position. Aleksandar Hemon positionpoliticalworld There's something in psychology called the narrative paradigm, which essentially means that we think of our lives as stories in which we are the main characters. Aleksandar Hemon charactermeanthinking It's difficult for me to understand how it was possible to live under the Bush regime for eight years and then just roll over and do other things. Aleksandar Hemon eightregimesyears If you have information you've got the world by the balls. But we have to convert information into knowledge in order to make it humanly useful. Aleksandar Hemon ballsorderworld
