Gary Shteyngart Quotes

Reading is entering into the consciousness of another human being.

If you stop thinking, if you stop wondering, you die.

Satire always benefits when evil and stupidity collide.

Vodka is a wonderful drink. You can drink so much of it without being as hung over as you would if you were drinking one of the brown liquors - the whiskeys and such. It's a great drink to go with appetizers.

You are not what you want. You are what wants you back.

In a strange way, I expected Russia to become more like America since the Soviet Union collapsed, but the reverse is true. America has become more like Russia: a kleptocratic society.

The fading light is us, and we are, for a moment so brief (...) beautiful.

Alcohol causes a lot of problems, and then to solve these problems, you drink more.

Remember this... develop a sense of nostalgia for something, or you'll never figure out what's important.

After you publish a book, you become a writer and you're supposed to take it very seriously. You're supposed to show up at your desk - although frankly, I don't have a desk, I write in bed - you're supposed to show up at your bed and produce work. I think it's a little bit like work. I like to have fun with it, do things like make silly book trailers. I don't want to take this too seriously.

If you read only one memoir by a disaffected, urban, 20-something Jewish girl this year, make it this one. Shukert rocks the lulav.

All of my books have an element of a man who is in love with somebody and needs them desperately, not just for procreation but for being able to fully unbosom himself. He only feels comfortable discussing things with women. Which is funny, because 80 percent of readers are women!

Good fiction makes me turn off all the other parts of my brain, so that I become quiet and submissive, entirely at the mercy of the work at hand.

She took my hand and pulled me after her, her shoulders giving off a sweet peppermint concoction that the bodies of young women sometimes produce to make my life more difficult.

We are now part of this giant machine where every second we have to take out a device and contribute our thoughts and opinions.

Vodka has a huge history in Russia, in that it's almost like a currency. It's the one thing that keeps the country in the dark ages and having a rollicking good time.

Do not throw away your heart. Keep your heart. Your heart is all that matters ... Throw away your ancestors! ... Throw away your shyness and the anger that lies just a few inches beneath ... Accept the truth! And if there is more than one truth, then learn to do the difficult work -- learn to choose. You are good enough, you are HUMAN ENOUGH, to choose!

I was a jackass in many ways. I projected that cruelty towards others, that kid whose hand I was wringing. If I could have hurt a hundred weaklings - weaker than me, and I was already very weak - I would. I was dying to hurt somebody, to pay it forward.

I read real books. On paper. You know, those printed books? I feel like this is the last thing I do to support my industry. I think they smell great, too.

Getting out of Russia was the best thing my parents did. I mean, that country will never amount to anything.

American fiction is good. It would be nice if somebody read it.

You want to read a book? That requires introspection. It requires time away from people and time away from the constant need to communicate and to connect.

I was really not a good student, and I felt that shame every day. That's one of the reasons I started smoking pot and drinking daily.

That's what tyrants do, I guess. They make you covet their attention; they make you confuse attention for mercy.

Before my first novel, I was dating a woman who later went to prison for bashing a guy with a hammer.