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Chris Bohjalian Biography

Chris Bohjalian

Chris Bohjalian (Armenian: Քրիս Պոհճալեան), is an American novelist and the author of 20 novels, including such bestsellers as Midwives, The Sandcastle Girls and The Guest Room. His work has been published in over 30 languages and three times become movies.

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Chris Bohjalian Quotes

Dead … might not be quiet at all.

Dead, Might, Quiet

Food is a gift and should be treated reverentially--romanced and ritualized and seasoned with memory.

Food, Memories, Memory, Ritualized, Should, Treated

As a novelist, there are three phone calls you never expect to receive in your lifetime because if you waited for them you would grow despairing - one calling from Stockholm with a Swedish accent, one from the NBA, and one from Oprah Winfrey.

Nba, Novelist, Novelists, Phone, Phones

The world is filled with human toxins -- not the darkness that we all occasionally crave, but actually people who are so unwilling to bask in the angelic light that is offered us all that they grow poisonous -- and you can pray for their eventual recovery and healing. And sometimes those prayers will be answered. But sometimes these individuals have been vaccinated against goodness and against angels and they are so unwilling to give an inch to their God that often they never (and I use this expression absolutely literally) see the light.

Actually, Angel, Give, Pray, Prayer, Recovery

He recalls what that first German soldier said to his major: No God-not yours or mine-approves of what you're doing.

Firsts, German, Said, Soldier

As Jeremy Bentham had asked about animals well over two hundred years ago, the question was not whether they could reason or talk, but could they suffer? And yet, somehow, it seemed to take more imagination for humans to identify with animal suffering than it did to conceive of space flight or cloning or nuclear fusion. Yes, she was a fanatic in the eyes of most of the country. . . Mostly, however, she just lacked patience for people who wouldn't accept her belief that humans inflicted needless agony on the animals around them, and they did so in numbers that were absolutely staggering.

Animal, Conceive, Country, Eye, Somehow

But it's funny how the memory works and how sometimes we just belive whatever we want.

Belive, Funny, Memories, Memory, Sometimes, Want

Life is filled with small moments that seem prosaic until one has the distance to look back and see the chain of large moments they unleashed.

Chain, Distance, Life, Looks, Moments, Small Moments

A single, ordinary person still can make a difference - and single, ordinary people are doing precisely that every day.

Difference, Differences, Make, Making A Difference, People, Person

Now it is you who everyone presumes is so fragile. Wounded. Scarred. Maybe they're right. Perhaps you are. A nursery rhyme comes into your head, and, like an egg, you allow yourself to topple onto your side, your legs still pulled hard against your torso. You lie like that a long while, watching the chrome shell of the tape measure sparkle until the sun moves.

Egg, Eggs, Head, Lie, Lying, Moving

When it seems you have nothing at all to live for, death is not especially frightening.

Death, Frightening, Live, Nothing, Seems

No one said living isn't a pretty chancy business, Sibyl. No one gets out of here alive.

Alive, Gets, Living, Pretty, Said

He defined himself almost wholly in the negative: It was not who he was, it was who he was not.

Defined, Negative, Wholly

But history does matter. There is a line connecting the Armenians and the Jews and the Cambodians and the Bosnians and the Rwandans. There are obviously more, but, really, how much genocide can one sentence handle?

Doe, History, Lines, Matter, Obviously, Sentence

Lie. Put down on paper the most interesting lies you can imagine. . . and then make them plausible.

Down, Interesting, Lying, Paper, Writing

The honest answer is more complex. On some level I was sent. Or inspired. Or called. But my calling, such as it was, wasn't a single booming invitation from above (really, is it ever?).

Answer, Answers, Booming, Calling, Levels, Single