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" Structure is one of the things that I always hope will reveal itself to me. "
Richard Russo
Will
Structure
Me
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" 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 get and read an enormous number of first novels. "
Richard Russo
Number
Read
Get
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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 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
" 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
" If there's an enduring theme in my work, it's probably the effects of class on American life. "
Richard Russo
Theme
American
Class
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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 read pretty voraciously. If it's good, I don't care what it is. "
Richard Russo
Good
Pretty
Read
" 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
" 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
" I can be glib and truthful all at once. "
Richard Russo
I Can
Truthful
Once
" 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
" I suppose all writers worry about the well running dry. "
Richard Russo
About
Dry
Running
" If you work at comedy too laboriously, you can kill what's funny in the joke. "
Richard Russo
Joke
Comedy
Funny
" 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 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
" 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
" Not everyone writes well from a child's point of view. "
Richard Russo
Point Of View
Everyone
Child
" I'm delighted by how Nobody's Fool turned out. It was a rare movie. "
Richard Russo
Nobody
Fool
How
" Writers are people who put pen to paper every day. "
Richard Russo
Who
Day
Every Day
" 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