I love Richard Yates, his work, and the novel, Revolutionary Road. It's a devastating novel. Michael Chabon More Quotes by Michael Chabon More Quotes From Michael Chabon I was surprised that my wife thought it was a good idea, then again with my agent, another woman, then my editor, another woman - in spite of the fact that all three of them reacted positively I still have this fear. Michael Chabon editors wife ideas There was a sort of irony in the fact that these [superhero] characters - many of whom in that period, the Golden Age, had been evolved to fight the Nazis - were themselves very much in the Nazi ideal. The idea that you can solve problems through physical strength, by being stronger and more dominant and more powerful - that is fascism. I mean, that's it, that's the essence of fascism. I don't think the creators of the superheroes or the kids who were reading them at the time were the slightest bit aware of it. Michael Chabon powerful reading kids If children are not permitted-not taught-to be adventurers and explorers as children, what will become of the world...? Michael Chabon taught children world Rueful, bittersweet, funny, written with tenderness and bite, Merrill Feitell's stories, like so many classic short stories, are made from the plain and painful stuff of this world, and haunted by the possibility, and the impossibility, of a better one. Michael Chabon stories stuff world When some drunken fool asked if she was a lesbian, she would say, 'In everything but sexual preference. Michael Chabon preference fool ifs Louis Pasteur said, 'Chance favors the prepared mind.' If you're really engaged in the writing, you'll work yourself out of whatever jam you find yourself in. Michael Chabon finding-yourself mind writing That evening I rode downtown on an unaccountably empty bus, sitting in the last row. At the front I saw a thin cloud of smoke rising around the driver’s head. ‘Hey, bus driver,’ I said. ‘Can I smoke?’ ‘May I,’ said the bus driver. ‘I love you,’ I said. Michael Chabon sitting love-you clouds The instructor, Ms. Pease, also taught in the church's religious school, and she had a Sunday school manner at once saccharine and condemnatory. Michael Chabon sunday religious school He took a step toward her, than another, tentatively, gathering all his strength, as though about to throw a heavy switch that would, if his calculations were correct, bring light to a hundred cities and ten thousand darkened rooms. He was going to ask her to dance - that was all. Michael Chabon light cities gathering A true storyteller is really good at writing himself into a corner and then finding a way out of that corner Michael Chabon true-story writing way So it was scary, but that's how it goes. To my great delight, I discovered that it did all belong. Michael Chabon scar delight scary I was thinking, too, of Superman and his fortress of solitude. Michael Chabon fortresses solitude thinking He comes to this other world and he has to reinvent himself. Again, it felt natural, even though I'd been working really hard trying to come up with something. Michael Chabon other-worlds natural trying I smoked and looked down at the bottom of Pittsburgh for a little while, watching the kids playing tiny baseball, the distant figures of dogs snatching at a little passing car, a miniature housewife on her back porch shaking out a snippet of red rug, and I made a sudden, frightened vow never to become that small, and to devote myself to getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Michael Chabon baseball dog kids It drains the bars and cafes after hours, concentrates the wicked and the guilty along its chipped Formica counter, and thrums with the gossip of criminals, policemen, shtarkers,and schlemiels, whores and night owls ... three or four floaters, solitaries, and drunks between benders lean against the sparkly resin counter, sucking the tea from their shtekelehs and working the calulations of their next big mistake. Michael Chabon gossip mistake night Love is like falconry," he said. "Don't you think that's true, Cleveland?" "Never say love is like anything." said Cleveland. "It isn't. Michael Chabon cleveland love-is thinking Entertainment is a sacred pursuit when done well. When done well, it raises the quality of human life. Michael Chabon sacred quality done The true magic of this broken world lay in the ability of the things it contained to vanish, to become so thoroughly lost, that they might never have existed in the first place. Michael Chabon magic broken life The truth of some promises is not as important as whether or not you can believe in them, with all your heart. Michael Chabon heart believe promise Bina rolls her eyes, hands on her hips, glances at the door. Then she comes over and drops her bag and plops down beside him. How many times, he wonders, can she have enough of him, already, and still have not quite enough? Michael Chabon eye doors hands
