Usually by the time I finish a book tour I've just about had it with the book. — Richard Russo Copy Share Image
I just have this feeling that if it weren't for the Gloversville Free Library that I probably would not be a writer. — Richard Russo Copy Share Image
My books are elegiac in the sense that they're odes to a nation that even I sometimes think may not exist anymore… — Richard Russo Copy Share Image
Bookstores, like libraries, are the physical manifestation of the wide world's longest, most thrilling conversation. — Richard Russo Copy Share Image
Steve Yarbrough's Safe from the Neighbors will take your breath away. Ambitious, funny, sad, smart, and beautifully crafted, it's everything a novel… — Richard Russo Copy Share Image
I've never written nearly as much about place as people seem to think I do. I just write about class. — Richard Russo Copy Share Image
“Because—and don’t let anybody tell you different—novel writing is mostly triage (this now, that later) and obstinacy.” — Richard Russo Copy Share Image
The deepest failures any fiction writer is likely to have are failures of not quite comprehending the truth of the story that… — Richard Russo Copy Share Image
“It was from my mother that I learned reading was not a duty but a reward, and from her that I intuited… — Richard Russo Copy Share Image
“Novel writing is mostly triage (this now, that later) and obstinacy. Trying something, and when that doesn't work, trying something else. Welcoming… — Richard Russo Copy Share Image
When I start getting close to the end of a novel, something registers in the back of my mind for the next… — Richard Russo Copy Share Image
“I hear you don't write any more," he says... "Not true," I inform him. "You should see the margins of my student… — Richard Russo Copy Share Image
“The problem with the contemplative life was that there was no end to contemplation, no fixed time limit after which thought had to be… — Richard Russo Copy Share Image
“That, very simply, was what adulthood must be all about—acquiring the skill to bury things more deeply. Out of sight and, whenever possible, out… — Richard Russo Copy Share Image
“Miles couldn't help admiring women for their ability to dismiss the evidence of their senses. If that's what explained it. If it wasn't simply… — Richard Russo Copy Share Image
That afternoon I came to understand that one of the deepest purposes of intellectual sophistication is to provide distance between us and our most… — Richard Russo Copy Share Image
“Lucy, who apparently had no idea his girlfriend's father held him in such low regard, agreed with Noonan that he was pushing the envelope,… — Richard Russo Copy Share Image
Movies have to handle time very efficiently. They're about stringing scenes together in the present. Novels aren't necessarily about that. — Richard Russo Copy Share Image
When authors who write literary fiction begin to write screenplays, everybody assumes that's the end. Here's another who's never going to write well again. — Richard Russo Copy Share Image
“There was something about spending money they didn't really have that made him optimistic about more coming in.” — Richard Russo Copy Share Image
Some authors have a very hard time understanding that in order to be faithful to the spirit of the book, it's almost always impossible… — Richard Russo Copy Share Image
HBO is really famous for hiring good people and staying out of their way until they ask for help, or need it. And that… — Richard Russo Copy Share Image
I don't think there's a shortage of material in the world. Or in my head. I just pray for continued good health, because I've… — Richard Russo Copy Share Image
Where was the middle ground between a sense of adventure and just plain sense? — Richard Russo Copy Share Image
