“The novel was set in an unspecified near future, because setting a novel in the present in a time of unprecedented technological… — Gary Shteyngart Copy Share Image
“From the moment I bought my ticket, I had a premonition I wasn’t returning to New York anytime soon. You Know, this… — Gary Shteyngart Copy Share Image
The best thing about the iPhone is this that tells me where I am all the time. There's never a need to… — Gary Shteyngart Copy Share Image
Vodka has a huge history in Russia, in that it's almost like a currency. It's the one thing that keeps the country… — Gary Shteyngart Copy Share Image
“The past is haunting us. In Queens, in Manhattan, it is shadowing us, punching us in the stomach. I am small, and… — Gary Shteyngart Copy Share Image
The only way to write about right now is to write about the future. — Gary Shteyngart Copy Share Image
You want to read a book? That requires introspection. It requires time away from people and time away from the constant need… — Gary Shteyngart Copy Share Image
You can't have a Russian household without vodka. It's just something to wash everything down with. I can't remember a time when… — Gary Shteyngart Copy Share Image
Communications devices were always used to effect change, to effect revolution. Telephone, telegraph - these all seemed like very big enhancements at… — Gary Shteyngart Copy Share Image
“I wonder what children whose parents have money think about in their spare time.” — Gary Shteyngart Copy Share Image
The fading light is us, and we are, for a moment so brief (...) beautiful. — Gary Shteyngart Copy Share Image
“For the first time in my life, I felt sorry for Jesus. Sorry that the miracles ascribed to him hadn’t actually made… — Gary Shteyngart Copy Share Image
“A few hours later, lying on a mat during rest time, Vladimir embraced the tiny curled-up creature beside him, his first best… — Gary Shteyngart Copy Share Image
“I wanted to confront her, to make her see the folly of her religion, to change her diet, to help her spend… — Gary Shteyngart Copy Share Image
In contravention of my belief that any life ending in death is essentially pointless, I needed my friends to open up that… — Gary Shteyngart Copy Share Image
“Every moment I have ever experienced as a child is as important as every moment I am experiencing now, or will experience… — Gary Shteyngart Copy Share Image
“There's no present left. This is the problem for a novelist. [The problem] is the present is gone. We're all living in… — 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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
If I still lived in Russia, I'd be dead... or a really effective oligarch. — Gary Shteyngart Copy Share Image
“The fact that my sexual awakening peripherally involves Steve Guttenberg I have gradually accepted.” — Gary Shteyngart Copy Share Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
