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If the only thing you knew about Oman was its location, you might never go at all.
Hanya Yanagihara -
Jaipur, like Florence or Kyoto, other artisan-rich cities to which it roughly compares, has always been known for its craftsmanship.
Hanya Yanagihara
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Any frequent visitor to Hawaii is fixated on mapping how the islands have changed since their last visit.
Hanya Yanagihara -
The only difference between a good writer who publishes a book and a good writer who doesn't is that the writer who publishes actually finished her book.
Hanya Yanagihara -
Writing is, by its nature, interior work. So being forced to be around people is a great gift for a novelist. You get to be reminded, daily, of how people think, how they speak, how they live; the things they worry about, the things they hope for, the things they fear.
Hanya Yanagihara -
The first thing I do whenever I go to Thailand is seek out the closest restaurant or stall selling mango-and-sticky rice: it's a little hillock of glutinous rice drenched in lashings of coconut milk and served with fresh mango.
Hanya Yanagihara -
Those of us lucky enough to fall in love with Asia know that it's an affair that's as long as it is resonant.
Hanya Yanagihara -
I go to Japan every November on vacation, and the one thing I never return home without is yuba, which is the thin skin that forms atop boiling soy milk. You skim it off and either eat it fresh or dry it.
Hanya Yanagihara
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I think fiction writers should work. If you have a job and are not living off advances or grants, you never have to make concessions in your writing, ever.
Hanya Yanagihara -
The term 'pashmina' is often used interchangeably with 'cashmere,' but in reality, pashmina is a specific type of very fine, lofty cashmere, woven from a specific type of goat - one indigenous to northern India, Nepal, and Pakistan, and harvested and woven there as well.
Hanya Yanagihara -
In Mumbai, the air is saltier. The sea is roilier. The traffic is snarlier. The pinks are pinker. The ostentation is crazier.
Hanya Yanagihara -
I really don't have anything urgent to say, and I think you shouldn't write unless you have something urgent to say. Sometimes that troubles me, and sometimes I don't really care.
Hanya Yanagihara -
I think anything goes in fiction as long as it fits within the interior logic of the work itself and is presented in a disciplined manner.
Hanya Yanagihara -
One of the fun things about unreliable narrators is they can be funny. You can admire things about them and laugh with them.
Hanya Yanagihara
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In a basic sense, 'A Little Life' is a homage to how my friends and I live our lives. I wanted to push past the definitions of how we typically define friendship. It's a different version of adulthood, but it's no less important and no less legitimate than anyone else's.
Hanya Yanagihara -
Publishing is a business, and I completely understand it. But when you don't have to depend on writing for your identity or your income, you can do whatever you want.
Hanya Yanagihara -
There's something nice and intimate about having a book. You know that someone's actually gone on this journey. You know that someone has actually researched and reported all these things. You can see and hear their tone in what they chosen to include and what they haven't.
Hanya Yanagihara -
The first thing many tourists see in Hawaii is concrete - a long dreary stretch of it through landscapes dominated by sad, cheap apartment buildings and almost entirely denuded of plant life.
Hanya Yanagihara -
Life will end in death and unhappiness, but we do it anyway.
Hanya Yanagihara -
The nice thing about publishing later in life is that you already know who you are. You don't have to hang out with the 'Paris Review' crowd to try to make yourself feel like a legitimate writer.
Hanya Yanagihara
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Be aware of who in your life is actually interested in hearing you discuss your writing, and who's just asking to be polite. Listening to writers talk about their work is often excruciatingly dull.
Hanya Yanagihara -
I'd be far too self-conscious and insecure if I suspected my editor might be a better novelist than I.
Hanya Yanagihara -
Once you join the queue for the immigration line, pay attention to what the expeditor tells you. Have your papers ready. Don't have your cell phone out. Take off your hat. Open your passport to the page with your photo and present it to the immigration officer already open.
Hanya Yanagihara -
I always wanted to be a scientist. I don't really have any writer friends.
Hanya Yanagihara