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" My father was a graduate student at Oxford in the early 1960s, where the conventions and etiquette of clothing were crucial to the pervasive class consciousness of the place and time. "

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" I have argued about the future of fiction with jaded novelists, far-seeing postmodernists, technologists, television critics. The argument that future generations will not know the pleasures of the novel has been a staple of book reviewing since at least 1960. "

Russell Smith

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" No matter how fine your suit and your shoes, you will remind everyone that you are not yet a grownup man by wearing them with your old college knapsack, in its nasty, nylon glory. "

" I have never, ever, not once, met a writer who said he or she would never read a mystery or a story set in some imagined future. "

" I dislike turtlenecks at the best of times, as they are always unflattering to the imperfect male physique, but when worn in combination with a v-neck sweater, they say 'Grandpa' louder than any other item of clothing. "

" I would rather be nuts than unattractive. "

" I'm in favour of hipster androgyny: Any trend that permits men to rebel against strict gender rules of appearance is going to make the world a more expressive and sensitive place for all of us. "

" I was given a thick paperback copy of the 'Guinness Book of Records' when I was 11 years old, and I read it gluttonously, cover to cover, paying special lip-smacking attention to all the incredibly gruesome chapters about the violence of human history. "

" There is actually no such thing as an Artist type. 'Artist' is just an economic designation, a box you tick on a form. We are all people, and we are all creative. "

" Most critics of gender division are women, and they're worried about girls and the roles presented for them by gendered entertainments. They are quite right to be. Telling girls that the cars and the guns are beyond their domain of expertise, and that they should content themselves with clothes and friendships, is limiting. "

" Yes, the hunky barista looks even more terrifically masculine with three days' growth on his chin. Guys under 50 mostly do. But when your beard is partly or largely grey, that stubble can just look a little unwashed. Sadly, when you're over 50, different rules apply. "

" I am indeed completely nuts, but that doesn't mean I don't care about how I look. Sometimes, I admit, I will privilege appearance over comfort. "

" Verisimilitude is something I am constantly seeking in fiction. I am looking for surface detail that makes something seem real. "

" Sadly, I don't really believe in the idea of timeless fashion. It's an oxymoron. If 'classic fashion' really never changed, we'd all still be wearing togas. "

" Ah, the intractable Canadian problem: Winter and finery are basically incompatible. "

" Wear your clothes with abandon, I say; don't keep them pristine as if for museums: They are meant to wear out. Then you get to buy new ones. "

" Anyone who has set out to invent a purely imaginary story knows that the whole thing is fantasy, from beginning to end; there must be a sense of magic created about the most restrained of naturalism. "

" Conformism is essential to the group coherence and 'spirit.' The whole impetus behind tribalism of this kind is conservative: Belonging to the tribe is defined by opposition to other tribes. Our tribe, and its traditional ways, is superior to other tribes because it is ours. "

" No surprise here: Pop music is by far the most conservative art form there is. "

" The only pleasurable part of taking the subway, as everyone will agree, is concocting elaborate fantasies about what it would be like to be married to the most interesting strangers you see there. "

" Even in early adulthood, men can't be told what to wear; they can only be subtly moved by example, encouragement, and a generally sophisticated atmosphere. "

" If you tell your husband or boyfriend for his whole life that he needn't worry about his clothes, that he couldn't possibly understand them, that they are a woman's affair, then you can hardly complain that he doesn't have any style sense. You all make this bed. "

" From its beginning, fan fiction has been written mostly by women. Originally, this was because of a dearth of interesting female characters in conventional sci-fi. "

" Anything that encourages a boy to open a book, in a world of more violent and therefore more compelling video games, is something I'm going to pay for. "

" It's great that I can look up a fact instantly on my cellphone, but I miss the days in my room with a dog-eared, text-heavy paperback, immersed in the statistics of crime and punishment and lunacy, completely alone with the narrative of human depravity. "

" I went to Queen's - a fine university with the proudly stupidest frosh week in the country. This was, when I was there, supposed to be somehow evidence of a higher social class. "

" We are still vulnerable to gender-targeted marketing no matter how carefully we edit our children's bookshelves. "

" Possibly the strangest book ever made, the 'Codex Seraphinianus' is an encyclopedia of an imaginary world, with illegible calligraphy - it is written in an alphabet no one can understand - and surreal drawings of odd beasts and machines. "

" An Indian tribe is sovereign to the extent that the U.S. permits it to be sovereign. "

" Increasingly, to dismiss any popular artistic style is seen as the worst kind of snobbery. And snobbery, it goes without saying, is unacceptable in a diverse and democratic world. "

" One of the qualities essential to writing exciting stories, whether for page or screen, is an ability to abandon one's morality. We simply cannot be good writers and good people. One must be able to access one's darkest self, one's venality and pettiness and murderousness. "