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Gary Shteyngart Biography

Gary Shteyngart

Gary Shteyngart (born Igor Semyonovich Shteyngart; July 5, 1972) is an American writer born in Leningrad, USSR. Much of his work is satirical.

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Gary Shteyngart Quotes

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

Dating, Guy, Hammers, Woman, Novel

She was clothed entirely in two large swatches of leather, the leather fake and shiny in a self-mocking way, absolutely correct for 1993, the first year when mocking the mainstream had become the mainstream.

Self, Years, Two, Fake, Large, Mainstream

Silence has been destroyed, but also the idea that it's important to learn how another person thinks, to enter the mind of another person. The whole idea of empathy is gone. We are now part of this giant machine where every second we have to take out a device and contribute our thoughts and opinions.

Enter, Ideas, Part, Silence, Thinking

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.

Drinking, Whiskey, Wonderful, Drink, Appetizers

I'm the fortieth ugliest man in this bar. But so what! So what!. . . Isn't this how people used to fall in love?

Falling In Love, Man, Men, People, Used

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

Figure, Important, Nostalgia, Remember, Sense

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.

Drinking, Smoking, Students, Student, Daily

Communications devices were always used to effect change, to effect revolution. Telephone, telegraph - these all seemed like very big enhancements at the time.

Communication, Effect, Enhancement, Like, Telephones, Used

That's what I always liked about science fiction - you can make the world end. Humour is my multiple warhead delivery system.

Delivery, Ends, Fiction, Liked, Make, World

The greatest books in Russian literature are satires. Gogol's Dead Souls, for example, is a very over-the-top satire about life in Russia. I think it's the thing we do best.

Book, Books, Life, Russian, Soul, Thinking

I love librarians more than any other people in the world. When I was an immigrant kid, they’ve made me feel like a human being and they gave me books that taught me English.

Book, English, Gave, Immigrant, Kids, People

I feel safe with him because he is so not my ideal and I feel like I can be myself because I'm not in love with him.

Feels, Ideals, Like, Love, Safe

One of the goals of analysis is you become your own analyst. You continue the process even if you're not in therapy, whether you continue the process by walking down the street thinking about things or whether you continue the process, as I do, by writing about them.

Writing, Thinking, Goal, Analysis, Become

Summer is a Latvian chicken. We make foolish choices. We think we’re young again. We run with outstretched arms toward an object of love and it pecks us and pecks us until we’re standing there snot-nosed and teary in the middle of Astor Place and the sun sets fire to our Penguin shirts and all that is left to do is go to our air-conditioned homes and ponder the cruelty of our finest season.

Choices, Home, Make, Running, Summer, Think

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!

Book, Desperately, Element, Men, Needs

I love Paul Giamatti - God, that man is like a walking Chekhov. His connection to humanity is unbelievable, and those feelings of low self-esteem - the way that all comes together on the screen? Delicious.

Self Esteem, Men, Feelings, Delicious, Connection, Together

We know summer is the height of of being alive. We don't believe in God or the prospect of an afterlife mostly, so we know that we're only given eighty summers or so per lifetime, and each one has to be better then the last, has to encompass a trip to that arts center up at Bard, a seemingly mellow game of badminton over at some yahoo's Vermont cottage, and a cool, wet, slightly dangerous kayak trip down an unforgiving river. Otherwise, how would you know that you have lived your summertime best? What is you missed out on some morsel of shaded nirvana?

Alive, Art, Believe, Lived, Summer, Summers

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.

Book, Industry, Printed, Real, Thing, Thinking

The love I felt for her on that train ride had a capital and provinces, parishes and a Vatican, an orange planet and many sullen moons -- it was systemic and it was complete.

Love, Moon, Moons, Orange, Sullen

In contravention of my belief that any life ending in death is essentially pointless, I needed my friends to open up that plastic bag and take one last look at me. Someone had to remember me, if only for a few more minutes in the vast silent waiting room of time.

Bags, Contravention, Looks, Remember, Waiting, Waiting Rooms

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