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" People in small towns, much more than in cities, share a destiny. "
Richard Russo
Destiny
Small
People
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" 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
" 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. "
Richard Russo
He
Truth
Writer
" Usually by the time I finish a book tour I've just about had it with the book. "
Richard Russo
Finish
Book
About
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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
" If there's an enduring theme in my work, it's probably the effects of class on American life. "
Richard Russo
Theme
American
Class
" Movies have to handle time very efficiently. They're about stringing scenes together in the present. Novels aren't necessarily about that. "
Richard Russo
Time
Handle
Movies
" I've never written nearly as much about place as people seem to think I do. I just write about class. "
Richard Russo
Think
Class
Just
" What comes easiest for me is dialogue. Sometimes when my characters are speaking to me, I have to slow them down so that I'm not simply taking dictation. "
Richard Russo
Sometimes
Slow
Me
" You use simple brushstrokes in a screenplay for things over which you would take much greater pains in a novel. "
Richard Russo
Things
Much
Over
" 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
Tired
Independence
Reading
" Writers are people who put pen to paper every day. "
Richard Russo
Who
Day
Every Day
" At the risk of appearing disingenuous, I don't really think of myself as 'writing humor.' I'm simply reporting on the world I observe, which is frequently hilarious. "
Richard Russo
Think
Writing
World
" When I look back over my novels what I find is that when I think I'm finished with a theme, I'm generally not. And usually themes will recur from novel to novel in odd, new guises. "
Richard Russo
Look
Back
Find
" 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? "
Richard Russo
Thinking
Genuine
Horror
" 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
Here
Never
Going
" 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
" By ignoring a lot of American culture you can write more interesting stories. Unfortunately, if you were writing about America as it is, you'd be writing about a lot of people sitting in front of television sets. "
Richard Russo
People
You
America
" I have to have a character worth caring about. I tend not to start writing books about people I don't have a lot of sympathy for because I'm just going to be with them too long. "
Richard Russo
Long
Caring
Writing
" Even at its most perceptive, sociology deals in abstractions. "
Richard Russo
Perceptive
Most
Even
" My books are elegiac in the sense that they're odes to a nation that even I sometimes think may not exist anymore except in my memory and my imagination. "
Richard Russo
Memory
Think
Imagination
" 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
" 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
Look
Me
" I suppose all writers worry about the well running dry. "
Richard Russo
About
Dry
Running
" 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
" I was pretty dead set against ever writing an academic novel. It's always been my view that there are already more than enough academic novels and that most of them aren't any good. Most of them are self-conscious and bitter, the work of people who want to settle grudges. "
Richard Russo
Writing
View
Good
" I'm delighted by how Nobody's Fool turned out. It was a rare movie. "
Richard Russo
Nobody
Fool
How
" Structure is one of the things that I always hope will reveal itself to me. "
Richard Russo
Will
Structure
Me