“On that night I was left with only the truth that nothing of our personality survives after death, that in the end all that was Misha Vainberg would evaporate along with the styles and delusions of his epoch, leaving behind… — Gary Shteyngart Copy Share Image
“These are all good things, I said. But no one knows where your country is or who you are. You don't have a familiar… — Gary Shteyngart Copy Share
Don't be pretentious is my first advice to young writers. This is the big problem - just because you're getting an MFA doesn't mean… — Gary Shteyngart Copy Share
I read real books. On paper. You know, those printed books? I feel like this is the last thing I do to support my… — Gary Shteyngart Copy Share
Russia tried to introduce beer as kind of the new vodka - and it's working with younger people in major cities - but you… — Gary Shteyngart Copy Share
“There's something outrageously simple about extending yourself toward a goal the way a plant seeks the sun's rays or a gopher the crunch of… — Gary Shteyngart Copy Share
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.… — Gary Shteyngart Copy Share
“This red-fading-into-brown defines Queens for me; it is quiet and melancholy and postsuccessful, vaguely British in its disposition.” — Gary Shteyngart Copy Share
If I still lived in Russia, I'd be dead... or a really effective oligarch. — Gary Shteyngart Copy Share
“The fact that my sexual awakening peripherally involves Steve Guttenberg I have gradually accepted.” — Gary Shteyngart Copy Share
“The simple trill of her laugh has not declined over the years; if anything it's been buffeted by her endless sorrows and disappointments.” — Gary Shteyngart Copy Share
“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… — Gary Shteyngart Copy Share
“The novel was set in an unspecified near future, because setting a novel in the present in a time of unprecedented technological and social… — Gary Shteyngart Copy Share
One should learn from a book. Books have a lot to teach us. They have a lot of empathy to impart to us, but… — Gary Shteyngart Copy Share
I always think that good writers should be growing up on the brink of death - it really lets them see mortality very clearly. — Gary Shteyngart Copy Share
