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" It's no secret that in my books I'm trying to make the comic and the serious rub up against each other just as closely and uncomfortably as I can. "
Richard Russo
Secret
Books
I Can
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" The deepest failures any fiction writer is likely to have are failures of not quite comprehending the truth of the story that he or she is telling. "
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" I think it would be harder for me not to write comedy because the comic view of things is the one that comes most naturally to me. "
Richard Russo
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" Truth be told, I'm not an easy man. I can be an entertaining one, though it's been my experience that most people don't want to be entertained. They want to be comforted. "
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" I looked back at some of my earlier published stories with genuine horror and remorse. I got thinking, How many extant copies might there be, who owns them, and do they keep their doors locked? "
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" If there's an enduring theme in my work, it's probably the effects of class on American life. "
Richard Russo
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" If my career continues along its current arc, people will probably look at me and see a writer who is obsessed with the relationship between rich and poor and with how the rich somehow or other always manage to betray the poor, even when they don't mean to. "
Richard Russo
People
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" Writers are people who put pen to paper every day. "
Richard Russo
Who
Day
Every Day
" I want that which is hilarious and that which is heartbreaking to occupy the same territory in the book because I think they very often occupy the same territory in life, much as we try to separate them. "
Richard Russo
Try
Think
Life
" I suppose all writers worry about the well running dry. "
Richard Russo
About
Dry
Running
" I think that if people are instructed about anything, it should be about the nature of cruelty. And about why people behave so cruelly to each other. And what kind of satisfactions they derive from it. And why there is always a cost, and a price to be paid. "
Richard Russo
People
Think
Nature
" You just kind of have faith. If that sounds kind of mystical, it's because I really don't know how it works, but I trust that it does. I try to write the way I read, in order to find out what happens next. "
Richard Russo
Find
You
Trust
" America has always been a nation of small places, and as we lose them, we're losing part of ourselves. "
Richard Russo
Losing
Lose
America
" Cary Grant never won an Oscar, primarily, I suspect, because he made everything look so effortless. Why reward someone for having fun, for being charming? "
Richard Russo
Someone
Having Fun
Look
" What does it feel like to be a parent? What does it feel like to be a child? And that's what stories do. They bring you there. They offer a dramatic explanation, which is always different from an expository explanation. "
Richard Russo
You
Parent
Feel
" I never worry about people not taking my work seriously as a result of the humor. In the end, the comic's best trick is the illusion that comedy is effortless. That people imagine what he's doing is easy is an occupational hazard. "
Richard Russo
End
Worry
People
" I think the darker aspect of my fiction-or anybody's fiction-is by its very nature somehow easier to talk about. "
Richard Russo
Think
Anybody
I Think
" You can be interested in a Jane Smiley novel whether or not anyone says a word. She enters into her characters' thoughts with great understanding and depth. "
Richard Russo
You
Great
She
" If you work at comedy too laboriously, you can kill what's funny in the joke. "
Richard Russo
Joke
Comedy
Funny
" Some authors have a very hard time understanding that in order to be faithful to the spirit of the book, it's almost always impossible to remain faithful to the text. You have to make changes. "
Richard Russo
Understanding
Time
Book
" 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
Think
Way
Ireland
" My dad had this rock hard body and would work 12- to 13-hour days. The guys he worked with were scrap-iron guys. Nobody on that road crew had read a book in 10 years, but there was something about the way they lived I really admired. "
Richard Russo
Book
Body
Nobody
" People in small towns, much more than in cities, share a destiny. "
Richard Russo
Destiny
Small
People
" HBO is really famous for hiring good people and staying out of their way until they ask for help, or need it. And that reputation is earned. "
Richard Russo
People
Reputation
Famous
" I don't think there's a shortage of material in the world. Or in my head. I just pray for continued good health, because I've got other stories to tell. "
Richard Russo
Good
Health
Think
" A short story is something that I think can be intuited and envisioned and held in your mind almost at once. "
Richard Russo
Almost
Mind
Short
" A lot of my characters in all of my books have a self-destructive urge. They'll do precisely the thing that they know is wrong, take a perverse delight in doing the wrong thing. "
Richard Russo
Know
Wrong Thing
Doing
" Even at its most perceptive, sociology deals in abstractions. "
Richard Russo
Perceptive
Most
Even
" People often ask me how I make things funny. I don't make things funny. "
Richard Russo
People
Funny
Ask
" I think a lot of what is going on with kids who get pushed too far and attempt either murder or suicide is that they are trying to deal with their own non-existence for the people who are supposed to care most for them. "
Richard Russo
Suicide
Trying
Think
" Not everyone writes well from a child's point of view. "
Richard Russo
Point Of View
Everyone
Child