Also, I've spent an entire week without reading any books or talking about them too loudly. I'm learning to work my apparat's screen, the colourful pulsating mosaic of it, the fact that it knows every last stinking detail about the world, whereas my books only know the minds of their authors.
Gary ShteyngartI write five, six days a week. The thing is capturing the voice. I feel like I've been perfecting one voice - in different iterations, sure, but the Russian-ness has always been the undercurrent.
Gary ShteyngartOne should learn from a book. Books have a lot to teach us. They have a lot of empathy to impart to us, but they should also be fun. This stuff is fun! You shouldn't pick up a book and say, "Oh my god, I'm gonna better myself by reading this." You may better yourself by reading this, but who cares? Just have fun.
Gary ShteyngartPeople always write on my Facebook that they've seen somebody they thought was me on the subway, and I was cursing badly.
Gary ShteyngartI always think that good writers should be growing up on the brink of death - it really lets them see mortality very clearly.
Gary Shteyngart