Richard Russo Quotes

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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.

Richard Russo

Life, Opportunity, Another Chance

FaceBook post by Richard Russo from Apr 27, 2014

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People sometimes get in the habit of being loyal to a mistake.

Richard Russo

Mistake, People, Loyal

Richard Russo (2017). “Mohawk”, p.157, Atlantic Books

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Which is why we have spouses and children and parents and colleagues and friends, because someone has to know us better than we know ourselves. We need them to tell us. We need them to say, "I know you, Al. You are not the kind of man who.

Richard Russo

Children, Men, Parent

FaceBook post by Richard Russo from Feb 21, 2013

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You use simple brushstrokes in a screenplay for things over which you would take much greater pains in a novel.

Richard Russo

Pain, Simple, Use

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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.

Richard Russo

Heart, People, Desire

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Have you ever noticed that when people use the expression 'I have to say', what follows usually needn't be said?

Richard Russo

Expression, People, Use

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What if all everybody needed in the world was to be sure of one friend? What if you were the one, and you refused to say those simple words?

Richard Russo

Simple, What If, New Friendship

FaceBook post by Richard Russo from Aug 02, 2012

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Bookstores, like libraries, are the physical manifestation of the wide world's longest, most thrilling conversation.

Richard Russo

Library, Bookstores, World

FaceBook post by Richard Russo from Feb 15, 2013

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When you don't know what to do, try something; if that doesn't work, try something else.

Richard Russo

Trying, Knows, Ifs

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I was the one who did come through that door. You were the one she was waiting for.

Richard Russo

Doors, Waiting

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People in small towns, much more than in cities, share a destiny.

Richard Russo

Destiny, Cities, People

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Go to it. Be bold. Be true. Be kind. Rotate your tires. Don't drink so much. There aren't going to be enough liver transplants to go around.

Richard Russo

Graduation, Be Kind, Tire

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Was anything in the world truer than that intuitive leap of the heart?

Richard Russo

Heart, World, Leap

Richard Russo (2017). “Empire Falls”, p.390, Atlantic Books

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Were it not for Occam's Razor, which always demands simplicity, I'd be tempted to believe that human beings are more influenced by distant causes than immediate ones. This would especially be true of overeducated people, who are capable of thinking past the immediate, of becoming obsessed by the remote. It's the old stuff, the conflicts we've never come to terms with, that sneaks up on us, half forgotten, insisting upon action.

Richard Russo

Believe, Past, Thinking

"Straight Man". Book by Richard Russo, 1997.

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Whatever you're working on, take small bites. The task will not be overwhelming if you can reduce it to its smallest component.

Richard Russo

Tasks, Overwhelming, Smallest

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There are a great many sins in this world, none of them original.

Richard Russo

World, Sin, This World

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They stayed, many of them, because staying was easier and less scary than leaving.

Richard Russo

Scary, Leaving, Easier

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What I discovered I liked best about striking out on my bicycle was that the farther I got from home, the more interesting and unusual my thoughts became.

Richard Russo

Travel, Home, Interesting

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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.

Richard Russo

Thinking, People, Cost

"Richard Russo on Painting a Canvas With His Novels". HBO Interview, www.hbo.com.

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You can't possibly judge your ability to control something until you've experienced the extremes of its capabilities. Do you understand?

Richard Russo

Judging, Ability, Capability

Richard Russo (2017). “Empire Falls”, p.296, Atlantic Books

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It's no secret that in my books I'm trying to make the comic and the serious rub up against each other just as closely and uncomfortably as I can.

Richard Russo

Book, Secret, Trying

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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

Feelings, Library, Ifs

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He'd discovered that his memories of that summer were like bad movie montages - young lovers tossing a Frisbee in the park, sharing a melting ice-cream cone, bicycling along the river, laughing, talking, kissing, a sappy score drowning out the dialogue because the screenwriter had no idea what these two people might say to each other.

Richard Russo

Summer, Memories, Kissing

FaceBook post by Richard Russo from Jul 31, 2016

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Worse, I have to admit to feeling the jealousy of one crab for another that has managed to climb out of the barrel.

Richard Russo

Feelings, Barrels, Crabs

FaceBook post by Richard Russo from Sep 02, 2012

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At the risk of appearing disingenuous, I don't really think of myself as 'writing humor.' I'm simply reporting on the world I observe, which is frequently hilarious.

Richard Russo

Writing, Thinking, Risk

"Failbetter" Interview, www.failbetter.com.

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Born: July 15, 1949
Occupation: Novelist
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