Richard Russo Quotes
When I look back over my novels what I find is that when I think I'm finished with a theme, I'm generally not. And usually themes will recur from novel to novel in odd, new guises.
Quotes to Explore
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I wrote my first novel in eighth grade for a boy named Kenny on whom I had an unrequited crush and who sat behind me in social studies.
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I love bookstores and booksellers. In my novel 'Dirty Martini,' I thanked over 3,000 booksellers by name in the back matter.
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We have finished the job, what shall we do with the tools?
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A man in love is incomplete until he has married. Then he's finished.
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In addition I wanted to write a Southern novel, because I'm a Southerner.
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Writing a first novel was an arduous crash course. I learned so much in the six years it took me to write it, mostly technical things pertaining to craft.
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Maybe some people, when they sit down to write their great novel or make their great record or paint their great painting, they have it all planned out in their head. But for me, it's never worked that way.
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In five years' time I'd like to be a mum. I want to settle down and have a family, definitely sooner rather than later. I'd like to have finished my second album too, maybe even my third. I'd like a sound that sticks around that other people are inspired by and that people know is me.
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The strange thing about writing is that it's so easy to write a novel. It is really easy. But it's getting there to the point where it's easy that's hard. The hard part is to get there.
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When starting to think about any novel, part of the motive is: I'm going to show them, this time.
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Before I studied story, I was trying to write a novel, and it was terrible. It wasn't going anywhere, and I couldn't figure out what I was trying to do. It was really hard; much harder than I thought it was going to be. Now that I've studied story, I think I'd have a different approach and maybe I could actually get it done.
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Things are not as they should be. Because He's not finished yet. They will be. Rest assured.
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I always think first about the nature of the story. When I had the idea for 'The Namesake,' I felt that it had to be a novel - it couldn't work as a story.
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We have finished with this charter that has been with us for too long.
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We read five words on the first page of a really good novel and we begin to forget that we are reading printed words on a page; we begin to see images.
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All my novels are very much directly related to my inner life, even though I'm inventing characters, even though it's fiction, even though it's make-believe, it nevertheless is coming out of the deepest recesses of myself.
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An image often propels the novel, gets it started. For me, it's an image that has a lot of emotion connected to it.
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Everyone deserves to be the hero of a novel.
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It is generally true that all that is required to make men unmindful of what they owe God for any blessing is that they should receive that blessing often and regularly.
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Then they grow away from the earth then they grow away from the sun then they grow away from the plants and the animals. They see no life. When they look they see only objects. The world is a dead thing for them the trees and the rivers are not alive. the mountains and stones are not alive. The deer and bear are objects. They see no life. They fear. They fear the world. They destroy what they fear. They fear themselves.
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Every choice we make is either a growth choice or a fear choice.
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When I look back over my novels what I find is that when I think I'm finished with a theme, I'm generally not. And usually themes will recur from novel to novel in odd, new guises.
