I took a 19th-century Russian novel class in college and have been smitten with Russian literature ever since. Writers like Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Grossman, and Solzhenitsyn tackle the great questions of morality, politics, love, and death. Anthony Marra More Quotes by Anthony Marra More Quotes From Anthony Marra Inside us there is a word we cannot pronounce, and that is who we are. Anthony Marra who-we-are She wanted to hold foreign syllables like mints on her tongue until they dissolved into fluency. Anthony Marra mint fluency tongue We wear clothes, and speak, and create civilizations, and believe we are more than wolves. But inside us there is a word we cannot pronounce and that is who we are. Anthony Marra clothes civilization believe My work often begins as little internal dares, wondering if I can pull something off. So I spent a few years drawing these stories together, trying to build a Pangea of what began as separate continents. Anthony Marra drawing together years Perhaps our deepest love is already inscribed within us, so its object doesn't create a new word but instead allows us to read the one written. Anthony Marra new-words deepest-love love-is But there had to be a quota. An upper limit to the number of miracles one is privileged to in a lifetime. How many times can a beloved reappear? Anthony Marra quota miracle numbers For their entire lives, even before they met you, your mother and father held their love for you inside their hearts like an acorn holds an oak tree. Anthony Marra mother heart father In my own work, humor is necessary, for the reasons stated above, but also because forbidding your characters silliness, absurdity, irony, and vulgarity forbids them aspects of the human experience every bit as universal as sorrow. Anthony Marra irony sorrow character There was a time when she had indulged in the hypothetical for hours a day, plotting the map that had led her here. But no life is a line, and hers was an uneven orbit around a dark star, a moth circling a dead bulb, searching for the light it once held. Anthony Marra stars light dark Her father was the face of her morning and night, he was everything, so saturating Havaa’s world that she could no more describe him than she could the air. Anthony Marra morning night father Life: a constellation of vital phenomena—organization, irritability, movement, growth, reproduction, adaptation. Anthony Marra growth movement organization Sometimes it bursts from your imagination fully formed, sometimes you absorb from nonfiction, sometimes you're able to imprint your own autobiographical experiences on a world you never yourself were a part of. A decent number of the one-liners in the title story originally came up in conversations with my girlfriend or my neighbor. Anthony Marra girlfriend imagination numbers She praised his book and he embraced her from gratitude rather than lust, but she didn't let go. Neither did he. She kissed his cheek, his earlobe. For months they'd run their fingers around the hem of their affection without once acknowledging the fabric. The circumference of the world tightened to what their arms encompassed. She sat on the desk, between the columns of read and unread manuscript, and pulled him toward her by his index fingers. Anthony Marra gratitude letting-go running Entire years had passed when he was rich enough in time to disregard the loose change of a minute, but now he obsessed over each one, this minute, the next minute, the one following, all of which were different terms for the same illusion. Anthony Marra next different years We twist our souls around each other’s miseries. Anthony Marra twists misery soul Anytime I can get either of them really laughing, I immediately pull out a pad of paper write the joke down, regardless of where we are or what we're doing. I must be absolutely insufferable. Anthony Marra paper writing laughing Invader and invaded held on to their fistfuls of earth, but in the end, the earth outlived the hands that held it. Anthony Marra ends earth hands There is something miraculous in the way the years wash away your evidence, first you, then your friends and family, then the descendants who remember your face, until you aren’t even a memory, you’re only carbon, no greater than your atoms, and time will divide them as well. Anthony Marra family-and-friends memories years War is unnatural, it causes people to act unnaturally. Anthony Marra causes war people A good mixtape didn't just gather together a bunch of love songs, but instead created an emotional narrative specific to your affection. The stories in most of my favorite collections are collected more like songs on a mixtape than, say, collected like spare change. By which I mean they are in conversation with each other and work to become larger than their parts. Anthony Marra emotional song mean
