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" 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
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" 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 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
" Writers are people who put pen to paper every day. "
Richard Russo
Who
Day
Every Day
" Usually by the time I finish a book tour I've just about had it with the book. "
Richard Russo
Finish
Book
About
" 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
" People often ask me how I make things funny. I don't make things funny. "
Richard Russo
People
Funny
Ask
" 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
" I'm delighted by how Nobody's Fool turned out. It was a rare movie. "
Richard Russo
Nobody
Fool
How
" I suppose all writers worry about the well running dry. "
Richard Russo
About
Dry
Running
" 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
" 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. "
Richard Russo
People
Easy
Experience
" 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
" When I start getting close to the end of a novel, something registers in the back of my mind for the next novel, so that I usually don't write, or take notes. And I certainly don't begin. I just allow things to percolate for a while. "
Richard Russo
End
Back
Mind
" 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 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
" Ultimately, your theme will find you. You don't have to go looking for it. "
Richard Russo
Theme
Looking
Go
" I can be glib and truthful all at once. "
Richard Russo
I Can
Truthful
Once
" 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'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
" Even at its most perceptive, sociology deals in abstractions. "
Richard Russo
Perceptive
Most
Even
" 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
" 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 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
" Structure is one of the things that I always hope will reveal itself to me. "
Richard Russo
Will
Structure
Me
" 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
" I get and read an enormous number of first novels. "
Richard Russo
Number
Read
Get
" People in small towns, much more than in cities, share a destiny. "
Richard Russo
Destiny
Small
People
" 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
" 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
" 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