Quotes by Richard Russo

Richard Russo

…aware, as always, that the truth isn’t much of substitute for a good answer.

Answers

Substitutes

A couple years ago, the novelist Russell Banks told me he was reading the ancient Greek historian Herodotus. I asked why. He said, ‘Because I’ve always wanted to and am tired of having my reading assigned.’ I thought it was a marvelous declaration of independence.

Couple

Reading

Tired

A lot of my characters in all of my books have a self-destructive urge. They’ll do precisely the thing that they know is wrong, take a perverse delight in doing the wrong thing.

Book

Character

Self

A short story is something that I think can be intuited and envisioned and held in your mind almost at once.

Mind

Stories

Thinking

After all, what was the whole wide world but a place for people to yearn for their heart’s impossible desires, for those desires to become entrenched in defiance of logic, plausibility, and even the passage of time, as eternal as polished marble.

Desire

Heart

People

America has always been a nation of small places, and as we lose them, we’re losing part of ourselves.

America

Losing

Small Places

And there comes a time in your life when you realize that if you don’t take the opportunity to be happy, you may never get another chance again.

Another Chance

Life

Opportunity

As I drift back into sleep, I can’t help thinking that it’s a wonderful thing to be right about the world. To weigh the evidence, always incomplete, and correctly intuit the whole, to see the world in a grain of sand, to recognize its beauty, its simplicity, its truth. It’s as close as we get to God in this life, and reside in the glow of such brief flashes of understanding, fully awake, sometimes for two or three seconds, at peace with our existence. And then back to sleep we go.

Sleep

Thinking

Two

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.

America

People

Writing

Cary Grant never won an Oscar, primarily, I suspect, because he made everything look so effortless. Why reward someone for having fun, for being charming?

Fun

Looks

Oscars

Follow The Behaviour University in order to get the greatest quotes from the greatest people of all time so that you can tap into your own greatness.

Ability

Ambitious

America

And Love

Another Chance

Answers

Ask Me

Assuming

Barrels

Be Kind

Beautiful

Believe

Betrayal

Book

Capability

Careers

Character

Choices

Cities

Class

Comedy

Couple

Crabs

Dad

Decision

Depth

Desire

Destiny

Different

Distance

Easier

Endure

Expression

Feelings

Fiction

Focus

Fun

Funny Things

Graduation

Grids

Growing Up

Hard Times

Heart

Hints

Ifs

Information

Intellectual

Iron

Jokes

Judging

The Future Blueprint

Tool

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

Tool

The Autobiography

Tool

The Behaviour Diary

Tool

The Dating Diary

Tool

The Relationship Therapist

Tool

Quotes by Richard Russo

Richard Russo

…aware, as always, that the truth isn’t much of substitute for a good answer.

A couple years ago, the novelist Russell Banks told me he was reading the ancient Greek historian Herodotus. I asked why. He said, ‘Because I’ve always wanted to and am tired of having my reading assigned.’ I thought it was a marvelous declaration of independence.

A lot of my characters in all of my books have a self-destructive urge. They’ll do precisely the thing that they know is wrong, take a perverse delight in doing the wrong thing.

A short story is something that I think can be intuited and envisioned and held in your mind almost at once.

After all, what was the whole wide world but a place for people to yearn for their heart’s impossible desires, for those desires to become entrenched in defiance of logic, plausibility, and even the passage of time, as eternal as polished marble.

America has always been a nation of small places, and as we lose them, we’re losing part of ourselves.

And there comes a time in your life when you realize that if you don’t take the opportunity to be happy, you may never get another chance again.

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.

Cary Grant never won an Oscar, primarily, I suspect, because he made everything look so effortless. Why reward someone for having fun, for being charming?

Get Social with TBU

Topics by Richard Russo

Popular Tools

The Future Blueprint

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

The Autobiography

The Behaviour Diary

The Dating Diary

The Relationship Therapist

Menu

Menu