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" Personally, I see little distinction between an artistic mentality and criminality. You couldn't possibly create a compelling story without some wickedness or some fascination with the disgusting. Being good is a hindrance to a writer. "

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" In the best stories, people are morally complex; they are flawed. We read them because the world is flawed, and we want to see it truthfully represented. And because it can be thrilling to be shocked and upset, and even to feel, for chilling moments, what it's like to be a bad person. "

Russell Smith

Best

World

People

" 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. "

" Only a tiny portion of music history involves a singer and a lyric. Songs in music are generally thought to be a minor form. "

" The locale does not determine the dress code; the host does. "

" What I don't understand is why men have decided that they like wearing hats indoors. It makes no sense to me. "

Russell Smith

Men

" Universities can teach maturity. They can teach teenagers how to be adults, and that means to function outside a clique or a tribe. "

" 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. "

" A suit is just a suit: a practical garment, not a ceremonial robe; it can be worn out to dinner with friends or for a visit to an art gallery. Its beauty and craftsmanship are utterly wasted if you think of it as something magical and symbolic. "

" 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. "

" The YA category is an entirely new one, and seems to have more to do with readability than with age group or theme. The adult YA readers I know do actually consistently say that they are looking for an easy read, a fun read, an unchallenging read. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Here is a fundamental conflict in educated society: We are not supposed to value beauty so highly, and yet who can defend against its sheer power to move, its rhetorical force? "

" There is something insouciant and boyish about the sockless ankle in summer. "

" 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. "

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

" The only thing that makes a book YA is that it is about teenagers, and it is written in a very conventional, non-artsy, non-pretentious way. YA is not the place for the oblique or the cryptic. If it is in any way experimental in form, it is not YA. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I don't see my artist friends as any more neurotic or addiction-prone than the others. The roommates I have had who were into triathlons or environmentalism were just as crazy as the poets, just as prone to tears over gardening or air conditioners, just as ready to kite a cheque or binge on cookie dough. "

" 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. "

" Most men are petrified of standing out in any way or being thought superficial. "

" Men over 60 often think that if they wear athletic shoes - soft-soled referee shoes or hiking shoes or actual running shoes - then they will look more youthful. The contrary is true. "

" 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. "

" Guys think that the military associations of camo are going to make them look tough, as if they might just break out a shotgun and take down a passing duck at any given moment. I'm not so sure. "

" My son craves picture books about Transformers and Ninja Turtles and the Hulk; they show one fantastic creature smashing or zapping another into smithereens on page after page. They are dull and ugly and show no interesting stories or models of conflict resolution or character building. "

" Have you noticed the people most likely to be up in arms about governments apparently spying on us tend to be the most non-private people you know? The people launching petitions and wailing about Big Brother and data collection are most likely to be the most constant self-presenters. "

" Canadian writers don't live in gated mansions; you can just talk to them when you see them lining up at the Second Cup. "

Russell Smith

See

Talk

" 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. "