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Richard Russo Biography

Richard Russo (born July 15, 1949) is an American novelist, short story writer, screenwriter, and teacher.

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Richard Russo Quotes

I'm delighted by how Nobody's Fool turned out. It was a rare movie.

Delighted, Fool, Movie, Rare, Turned

At the risk of appearing disingenuous, I don't really think of myself as 'writing humor. ' I'm simply reporting on the world I observe, which is frequently hilarious.

Hilarious, Observe, Risk, Think, Thinking, Writing

It's no secret that in my books I'm trying to make the comic and the serious rub up against each other just as closely and uncomfortably as I can.

Book, Closely, Make, Secret, Serious, Trying

What if all everybody needed in the world was to be sure of one friend? What if you were the one, and you refused to say those simple words?

Friend, New Friendship, Simple, What If, Words

The other possibility was that there was no right thing to say, that the choice wasn't between right and wrong but between wrong, more wrong, and as wrong as you can get.

Choices, Possibility, Right, Right Thing To Say, Wrong

I read pretty voraciously. If it's good, I don't care what it is.

Beauty, Care, Good, Ifs, Read

If there's an enduring theme in my work, it's probably the effects of class on American life.

Class, Endure, Probably, Theme, Work

Sleep is over-rated. Have you ever noticed how it's always recommended to people anybody with half a brain can see need to wake up?

Brain, Half, People, Recommended, See, Sleep

As I drift back into sleep, I can't help thinking that it's a wonderful thing to be right about the world. To weigh the evidence, always incomplete, and correctly intuit the whole, to see the world in a grain of sand, to recognize its beauty, its simplicity, its truth. It's as close as we get to God in this life, and reside in the glow of such brief flashes of understanding, fully awake, sometimes for two or three seconds, at peace with our existence. And then back to sleep we go.

Fully, Sleep, Thinking, Two, Weigh, Wonderful

You can't possibly judge your ability to control something until you've experienced the extremes of its capabilities. Do you understand?

Ability, Capability, Control, Experienced, Judging, Understand

I 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.

Academic, People, Self, View, Views, Writing

Bookstores, like libraries, are the physical manifestation of the wide world's longest, most thrilling conversation.

Bookstores, Library, Like, Wide, World

Knowing and knowing what to do about it were two different things.

Different, Knowing, Things, Two

. . . Baggott enjoys living on the knife edge between hilarity and heartbreak and that makes her a writer after my own heart.

Baggott, Heart, Heartbreak, Hilarity, Knives, Living

Steve Yarbrough's Safe from the Neighbors will take your breath away. Ambitious, funny, sad, smart, and beautifully crafted, it's everything a novel should be.

Ambitious, Crafted, Neighbors, Sad, Safe, Smart

Whatever you're working on, take small bites. The task will not be overwhelming if you can reduce it to its smallest component.

Tasks, Overwhelming, Smallest, Reduce, Component

Since her retirement from teaching Miss Beryl's health had in many respects greatly improved, despite her advancing years. An eighth-grade classroom was an excellent place to snag whatever was in the air in the way of illness. Also depression, which, Miss Beryl believed, in conjunction with guilt, opened the door to illness. Miss Beryl didn't know any teachers who weren't habitually guilty and depressed-guilty they hadn't accomplished more with their students, depressed that very little more was possible.

Accomplished, Believed, Retirement, Snag, Teacher, Teaching

You use simple brushstrokes in a screenplay for things over which you would take much greater pains in a novel.

Greater, Pain, Simple, Take, Use

Ultimately, your theme will find you. You don't have to go looking for it.

Looking, Theme, Ultimately

Don't even the best and most fortunate of lives hint at other possibilities, at a different kind of sweetness and, yes, bitterness too? Isn't this why we can't help feeling cheated, even when we know we haven't been?

Cheated, Different, Feelings, Fortunate, Hint, Hints

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