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 RussoAnd there comes a time in your life when you realize that if you don't take the opportunity to be happy, you may never get another chance again.
Richard RussoOdd that the future should be so difficult to bring into focus when the past, uninvited, offered itself up so easily for inspection.
Richard RussoI 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 RussoMy God, he couldn't help thinking, how terrible it is to be that age, to have emotions so near the surface that the slightest turbulence causes them to boil over. That, very simply, was what adulthood must be all about -- acquiring the skill to bury things more deeply. Out of sight and, whenever possible, out of mind.
Richard Russo