If writing really is empathy, then understanding your place in society might actually help you achieve it. — Rumaan Alam Copy Share Image
Some writers are prolific; some are shape-shifters. It's rare and intimidating to encounter one who is both. — Rumaan Alam Copy Share Image
If you can't empathize with other people, then you will never really be able to write well about them. — Rumaan Alam Copy Share Image
I am a binge reader, with a tendency to throw myself at a writer, immerse myself in their work. — Rumaan Alam Copy Share Image
Every sense has the power to transport us through time, but it's taste I find the most mysterious, and writing about it… — Rumaan Alam Copy Share Image
For many writers, the endless performance of being a writer - tweeting, appearing, making the rounds - is required simply to attract… — Rumaan Alam Copy Share Image
Genre is a useful thing when organizing texts in a bookshop but immaterial to the particular exchange between writer and reader. — Rumaan Alam Copy Share Image
When I look at the list of my favorite works, writers who are women do tend to outnumber writers who are men… — Rumaan Alam Copy Share Image
There are probably some readers who don't want a great American writer to acknowledge that cleaning out the bottom drawer of the… — Rumaan Alam Copy Share Image
When you are what we call a 'minority writer,' a writer of color, a writer of any kind of difference, there is… — Rumaan Alam Copy Share Image
In a strange way, Louise Erdrich is perhaps our least famous great American writer; she is not reclusive, but she is reticent,… — Rumaan Alam Copy Share Image
I always like it when writers posit writing as an act of empathy. It's such a grand turn of phrase, such a… — Rumaan Alam Copy Share Image
Writing takes gall. I like to think that's true even for writers with several books under their belt, writers who have been… — Rumaan Alam Copy Share Image
When you are what we call a 'minority writer,' a writer of color, a writer of any kind of difference, there is some kind… — Rumaan Alam Copy Share
Fashion has underscored the interchangeability of men for a long time, maybe from the outset. — Rumaan Alam Copy Share
I've spent many hours of my life browsing in stores. At 21, I admired clothes I couldn't afford. At 30, I bought them. At… — Rumaan Alam Copy Share
With respect to parenting, biological age is not, for men, the concern it is for women. — Rumaan Alam Copy Share
That's part of fashion's promise: that a girlfriend or boyfriend or a promotion are just one tie or sweater or pair of shoes away. — Rumaan Alam Copy Share
I do think that I have a sensitivity to the depictions of maybe all minorities in literature. And I think that the experience of… — Rumaan Alam Copy Share
When you are young, it's deeply annoying to be told that certain things are a condition of your youth. There's almost always some condescension… — Rumaan Alam Copy Share
Children's literature - the product of adult guesswork - often fails to account for its audience's slippery grasp on the world. — Rumaan Alam Copy Share
“One of her most reached-for truisms was that some percentage of jobs were indistinguishable from one another, as they all involved the sending of… — Rumaan Alam Copy Share
Writing takes gall. I like to think that's true even for writers with several books under their belt, writers who have been doing it… — Rumaan Alam Copy Share
Genre is a useful thing when organizing texts in a bookshop but immaterial to the particular exchange between writer and reader. — Rumaan Alam Copy Share
Instead of a passion for the Yankees or fly-fishing or birding, I want to pass on to my sons a love of books, music,… — Rumaan Alam Copy Share
Before the arrival of my first son, I gave up on the moribund business of magazine publishing, where I had long dreamed of a… — Rumaan Alam Copy Share
