Tea Obreht Quotes

Quotes about:

Mothers Writing

Come on, is your heart a sponge or a fist?

Tea Obreht

Heart, Fists, Sponges

7 Copy quote
No matter how grave the secret, how imperative absolute silence, someone would always feel the urge to confess, and an unleashed secret is a terrible force.

Tea Obreht

Silence, Secret, Matter

"Téa Obreht: 'I don't feel I've earned the Orange prize'" by Kira Cochrane, www.theguardian.com. June 10, 2011.

4 Copy quote
At the end of the day, despite all the other great things that literature does in society and in a person's life, I think that we read to escape. And I think that place, more than anything, provides that escape quickly, if an author is engaged with the place.

Tea Obreht

Thinking, The End Of The Day, Literature

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The best fiction stays with you and changes you.

Tea Obreht

Fiction

Interview with Jennifer L. Knox, www.newyorker.com. June 14, 2010.

7 Copy quote
You never know what's going to happen in your life, and you never know what's going to happen in someone else's life either.

Tea Obreht

Happens, Knows

"Téa Obreht: 'I don't feel I've earned the Orange prize'" by Kira Cochrane, www.theguardian.com. June 10, 2011.

5 Copy quote
Wash the bones, bring the body, leave the heart behind.

Tea Obreht

Heart, Body, Bones

Tea Obreht (2011). “The Tiger's Wife”, p.88, Hachette UK

4 Copy quote
I do no writing while I'm in Belgrade visiting my grandma.

Tea Obreht

Grandma, Writing, Belgrade

12 Copy quote
The dead are celebrated. The dead are loved. They give something to the living. Once you put something into the ground, Doctor, you always know where to find it.

Tea Obreht

Doctors, Giving, Living Once

4 Copy quote
When your fight has purpose - to free you from something, to interfere on the behalf of an innocent - it has a hope of finality. When the fight is about unraveling - when it is about your name, the places to which your blood is anchored, the attachment of your name to some landmark or event - there is nothing but hate, and the long, slow progression of people who feed on it and are fed it, meticulously, by the ones who come before them. Then the fight is endless, and comes in waves and waves, but always retains its capacity to surprise those who hope against it.

Tea Obreht

Hate, Fighting, Attachment

"The Tiger's Wife". Book by Tea Obreht, 2009.

7 Copy quote
Kelly Link's prose is conveyed in details so startling and fine that you work up a sweat just waiting for the next sentence to land. This is why we read, crave, need, can't live without short stories.

Tea Obreht

Land, Sweat, Waiting

5 Copy quote
When men die, they die in fear", he said. "They take everything they need from you, and as a doctor it is your job to give it, to comfort them, to hold their hand. But children die how they have been living - in hope. They don't know what's happening, so they expect nothing, they don't ask you to hold their hand - but you end up needing them to hold yours. With children, you're on your own. Do you understand?

Tea Obreht

Jobs, Children, Men

6 Copy quote
Being taken seriously, for a young writer, is a wonderful form of encouragement, but at the same time, I don't think one should ever feel like attempting a kind of artistic endeavor is beyond your scope just because of age or inexperience.

Tea Obreht

Encouragement, Taken, Thinking

4 Copy quote
My family lived in Egypt from 1993 to 1996.

Tea Obreht

Egypt, My Family

"Téa Obreht" by Jennifer L. Knox, www.newyorker.com. June 14 & 21, 2010.

4 Copy quote
Suddenness," he says. " You do not prepare, you do not explain, you do not apologize. Suddenly, you go. And with you, you take all contemplation, all consideration of your own departure. All the suffering that would have come from knowing comes after you are gone, and you are not a part of it.

Tea Obreht

Knowing, Suffering, Gone

4 Copy quote
A lot of writers that I know have told me that the first book you write, you write about your childhood, whether you want to or not. It calls you back.

Tea Obreht

Book, Writing, Childhood

"Conversation: Tea Obreht, Author of ‘The Tiger’s Wife’". "PBS NewsHour" with Jeffrey Brown, www.pbs.org. April 1, 2011.

4 Copy quote
Everything necessary to understand my grandfather lies between two stories: the story of the tiger’s wife, and the story of the deathless man. These stories run like secret rivers through all the other stories of his life – of my grandfather’s days in the army; his great love for my grandmother; the years he spent as a surgeon and a tyrant of the University. One, which I learned after his death, is the story of how my grandfather became a man; the other, which he told to me, is of how he became a child again.

Tea Obreht

Running, Children, Lying

Tea Obreht (2011). “The Tiger's Wife”, p.15, Hachette UK

25 Copy quote
I grew up in Cyprus and Egypt, these fantastic places I remember fondly.

Tea Obreht

Egypt, Cyprus, Remember

52 Copy quote
In the end, all you want is someone to long for you when it comes time to put you in the ground.

Tea Obreht

Long, Want, Ends

"The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht - review" by Kapka Kassabova, www.theguardian.com. March 11, 2011.

4 Copy quote
I am very interested in place, and the influences of place on characters.

Tea Obreht

Character, Influence

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A family has its own rituals and its own superstitions.

Tea Obreht

Superstitions, Ritual

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At the end of the day, it's about the reader's attachment to and belief in the magical elements that make or break magical realism.

Tea Obreht

Attachment, The End Of The Day, Make Or Break

5 Copy quote
We're all entitled to our superstitions.

Tea Obreht

Superstitions, Entitled

4 Copy quote
My grandfather and I were very close.

Tea Obreht

Grandfather, My Grandfather

5 Copy quote
In my earliest memory, my grandfather is bald as a stone and he takes me to see the tigers.

Tea Obreht

Memories, Grandfather, Stones

Tea Obreht (2011). “The Tiger's Wife”, p.3, Hachette UK

5 Copy quote
My mother always says that fear and pain are immediate, and that, when they're gone we're left with the concept, but not the true memory.

Tea Obreht

Mother, Pain, Memories

4 Copy quote

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Born: September 30, 1985
Occupation: Novelist
Cite this Page: Citation

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