Not everyone writes well from a child's point of view. Richard Russo More Quotes by Richard Russo More Quotes From Richard Russo To expect reason is where the fallacy lies. Richard Russo fallacyreasonlying I think the darker aspect of my fiction-or anybody's fiction-is by its very nature somehow easier to talk about. Richard Russo easierfictionthinking Don't even the best and most fortunate of lives hint at other possibilities, at a different kind of sweetness and, yes, bitterness too? Isn't this why we can't help feeling cheated, even when we know we haven't been? Richard Russo hintsdifferentfeelings As I drift back into sleep, I can't help thinking that it's a wonderful thing to be right about the world. To weigh the evidence, always incomplete, and correctly intuit the whole, to see the world in a grain of sand, to recognize its beauty, its simplicity, its truth. It's as close as we get to God in this life, and reside in the glow of such brief flashes of understanding, fully awake, sometimes for two or three seconds, at peace with our existence. And then back to sleep we go. Richard Russo sleeptwothinking To his surprise he also discovered that it was possible to be good at what you had little interest in, just as it had been possible to be bad at something, whether painting or poetry, that you cared about a great deal. Richard Russo paintingsurpriselittles When authors who write literary fiction begin to write screenplays, everybody assumes that's the end. Here's another who's never going to write well again. Richard Russo assumingwritingfiction A couple years ago, the novelist Russell Banks told me he was reading the ancient Greek historian Herodotus. I asked why. He said, 'Because I've always wanted to and am tired of having my reading assigned.' I thought it was a marvelous declaration of independence. Richard Russo tiredcouplereading I've never written nearly as much about place as people seem to think I do. I just write about class. Richard Russo writingclassthinking "If you paid me for work," continued Max, whose rhetoric was more sophisticated than you might expect from a man with food in his beard, "I wouldn't have to feel worthless. There's not law says old people have to feel worthless all the while, you know. You paid me, I'd have some dignity." Now it was Mile's turn to nod and smile agreeably. "I think the dignity ship set sail a long time ago, Dad." Richard Russo dadmenthinking I'm delighted by how Nobody's Fool turned out. It was a rare movie. Richard Russo delightedfool One of the odd things about middle age, he concluded, was the strange decisions a man discovers he's made by not really making them, like allowing friends to drift away through simple neglect. Richard Russo decisionsimplemen The other possibility was that there was no right thing to say, that the choice wasn't between right and wrong but between wrong, more wrong, and as wrong as you can get. Richard Russo right-thing-to-saypossibilitychoices To his surprise, she leaned over and kissed him on the forehead, a kiss so full of affection that it dispelled the awkwardness, even as it caused Miles' heart to plummet, because all kisses are calibrated, and this one revealed the great chasm between affection and love. Richard Russo kissingand-loveheart Knowing and knowing what to do about it were two different things. Richard Russo differentknowingtwo I suppose all writers worry about the well running dry. Richard Russo dryworryrunning It's possible to overlook character flaws of in-laws for the simple reason that you feel neither responsible for them nor genetically implicated. Richard Russo simplelawcharacter I read pretty voraciously. If it's good, I don't care what it is. Richard Russo careifsbeauty I don't think America has ever had a center the way London is the center of England or Dublin is the center of Ireland. Richard Russo dublinamericathinking He looks like he could be taken in a fight. Not by me, but by somebody. Not anyone in Humanities, probably. Richard Russo fightingtakenhumanity My God, he couldn't help thinking, how terrible it is to be that age, to have emotions so near the surface that the slightest turbulence causes them to boil over. That, very simply, was what adulthood must be all about -- acquiring the skill to bury things more deeply. Out of sight and, whenever possible, out of mind. Richard Russo skillssightthinking
