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"I think it would be harder for me not to write comedy because the comic view of things is the one that comes most naturally to me."
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"I had to stop myself from laughing. Who needs help taking a pill?"

"She's got feet like boats, whiskers like an American, and her undies are filthy."

"Are you out of your goddamn mind? You think we can take on two hundred soldiers? I know I am an extremely attractive man, J, but I am not Bruce Lee."Who's Bruce Lee?"Who's Bruce Lee? Kenji asks, horrified. "Oh my God. We can't even be friends anymore."Why? Was he a friend of yours?"You know what, he says, "just stop. Just-I can't even talk to you right now."

"I glanced at Derek. The boy wonder didn't melt into a pile of goo, although his gaze was glued to Rowena's chest. Avoiding eye contact. Good strategy."

"Comedy to me has always seemed a social tightrope for the comedian. For all axioms intellectually sound the general public would prefer to be amused, but in those emotionally sound, it then chooses to get offended."
Explore more quotes by Richard Russo

"I think a lot of what is going on with kids who get pushed too far and attempt either murder or suicide is that they are trying to deal with their own non-existence for the people who are supposed to care most for them."

"HBO is really famous for hiring good people and staying out of their way until they ask for help, or need it. And that reputation is earned."

"I have to have a character worth caring about. I tend not to start writing books about people I don't have a lot of sympathy for because I'm just going to be with them too long."

"I think that if people are instructed about anything, it should be about the nature of cruelty. And about why people behave so cruelly to each other. And what kind of satisfactions they derive from it. And why there is always a cost, and a price to be paid."

"I looked back at some of my earlier published stories with genuine horror and remorse. I got thinking, How many extant copies might there be, who owns them, and do they keep their doors locked?"

"You just kind of have faith. If that sounds kind of mystical, it's because I really don't know how it works, but I trust that it does. I try to write the way I read, in order to find out what happens next."

"I think the darker aspect of my fiction-or anybody's fiction-is by its very nature somehow easier to talk about."

"If my career continues along its current arc, people will probably look at me and see a writer who is obsessed with the relationship between rich and poor and with how the rich somehow or other always manage to betray the poor, even when they don't mean to."

"By ignoring a lot of American culture you can write more interesting stories. Unfortunately, if you were writing about America as it is, you'd be writing about a lot of people sitting in front of television sets."

"You can be interested in a Jane Smiley novel whether or not anyone says a word. She enters into her characters' thoughts with great understanding and depth."
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