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" I always call myself either an optimistic pessimist or a pessimistic optimist - I'm not sure which way it goes. "
Nathan Englander
Optimist
Myself
Pessimist
Related Quotes:
" I hardly grew up mono-lingually! I was raised religious, so there's a tradition of semi-access to a second language. When I learned my ABCs, they taught us our Aleph-Bet at the same time. "
Nathan Englander
Tradition
Up
Same
" There's an Armed Forces Haggadah and an Alcoholics Anonymous Haggadah and an LGBT Haggadah. Some people make a new Haggadah every year. It's a real living document... They're just constantly made throughout time. "
Nathan Englander
People
Time
Some People
" I am a fifth-generation American, but from a young age, I went to yeshiva. I spent 12 hours a day with rabbis, and I think in Yiddish. To this day, I have to go back and unravel my writing and polish it so everyone doesn't sound like an old Jewish woman. "
Nathan Englander
Age
Writing
Woman
" I love those books and movies where someone turns because they're blackmailed or they're passed over for promotion. "
Nathan Englander
Love
Over
Promotion
" Whatever part of writing that is subconscious is a thing that no one has access to. "
Nathan Englander
Subconscious
Whatever
Access
" For a book to function... it has to be a functioning reality. The character has to be real, and I imagine that's exactly what happens for a spy who is in deep cover. "
Nathan Englander
Character
Book
Real
" You spend so much time as a writer telling straight and linear stories. "
Nathan Englander
Stories
Time
You
" Sometimes I feel like those born-again folk, always working on their faith, but I'm always working on my atheism. We all have our struggles. "
Nathan Englander
Feel
Faith
Like
" I was resistant to the Internet. I was afraid of it. "
Nathan Englander
Afraid
Resistant
Internet
" The reason people get afraid of writing real, honest journalism and fiction, and the reason corrupted people and demagogues are afraid of journalism and fiction and poetry across the world, is because it is a subversive form. "
Nathan Englander
Poetry
Honest
Writing
" So many people discuss, you know, Israel/Palestine as if it's people on a spectrum. "
Nathan Englander
Many
Spectrum
People
" When I was living in Jerusalem, I used to write in a coffee shop called Tmol Shilshom. I'd sit at the same table every day and work. And right next to my seat was a weathered wingback chair by a window. "
Nathan Englander
Coffee
Day
Work
" Palestine isn't a state when it concerns statehood. When it comes to warring, it's a state, yes? The Palestinians, they live in a country, for the purpose of war. "
Nathan Englander
Yes
Live
State
" Philip Roth has been a huge influence on me. The early books I read in my teens and twenties. "
Nathan Englander
Early
Influence
Me
" I didn't sleep the night I finished 'Sister Hills.' It was so unsettling. I felt really wild. I didn't have a clue. It's a very loaded subject, and I did not know what I had. I was interested in watching how choices unfold over time. It's a story that's raising questions. "
Nathan Englander
Night
Sister
Choices
" Every nation should wrestle with the question of what it means to defend itself, what it means to take revenge. "
Nathan Englander
Revenge
Take
Defend
" Yes, there is a way I was taught to think that's very suited to writing. And, of course, I'm thankful to have grown up in a world filled with stories. "
Nathan Englander
Way
Thankful
Think
" There's no such thing as being a cultural Jew. You're religious or you're not. "
Nathan Englander
Cultural
You
Being
" Human experience is infinite. Lives are infinite. Stories are infinite. Just because one story has gravity in it doesn't mean you can't write a different one with gravity in it. "
Nathan Englander
Story
You
Just Because
" It's so easy to call something a Jewish story or a gay story or a woman's story. Aesthetically, if a story is not universal, it has failed. Your obligation is to the story. One rule creatively, and emotionally, is its universality. "
Nathan Englander
Easy
Universal
Woman
" Every book is vulnerable, and every book is nerve-wracking, but I've never been both so excited and terrified to have a book coming into the world. It's an expressly loaded subject, one on which you can't win. "
Nathan Englander
Win
Never
Excited
" I moved to New York because I thrive there. "
Nathan Englander
New
York
Thrive
" When I wrote my novel, 'The Ministry of Special Cases,' I couldn't even brush my teeth. I had to write in isolation from everything else. I thought a play would take away from my fiction, but the more projects I work on, the more time I have. "
Nathan Englander
Work
Isolation
Special
" When you see 'editor' on a book, there are many permutations of what that title can mean. "
Nathan Englander
Title
Editor
Book
" I understand if everyone looking at me is seeing a Jew and seeing me as a kind of 'other.' But I can't be expected to see myself that way. That is, to me, Jewish is the normal way to be; it's not a type of being. "
Nathan Englander
Seeing
Looking
Me
" I wrote a novel, so now they can call me a novelist. I tell stories; that's it. "
Nathan Englander
Call
Me
Now
" What I'm trying to say is that a lot that lies behind being able to live the writing life is psychological and wrapped up in ideas of self-definition. "
Nathan Englander
Life
Trying
Ideas
" With each book, I've found myself more and more able to draw off the personal and still be as vulnerable as I need to be as a writer. "
Nathan Englander
Personal
Off
Need
" Everything is so much clearer once a world is framed. Maybe it sounds crazy, but with writing, it's infinity that is limiting and the limited that allows for the truly infinite. Once all those elements are in place in a story, the brain is truly freed up to imagine without end. "
Nathan Englander
Crazy
Story
End
" Twitter is the best art for writers. I find it enticing. "
Nathan Englander
Enticing
Art
Find