Gary Shteyngart
Gary Shteyngart
Gary Shteyngartis an American writer born in Leningrad, USSR. Much of his work is satirical...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth5 July 1972
CountryUnited States of America
writing mean personality
Don't be pretentious is my first advice to young writers. This is the big problem - just because you're getting an MFA doesn't mean you have to write for the Academy. Be true to your personality. Don't temper your personality down with words. Don't build defensive fortresses around yourself with words - words are your friends.
country mean russia
Getting out of Russia was the best thing my parents did. I mean, that country will never amount to anything.
falling-in-love book mean
... I'm the fortieth-ugliest man in this bar. But so what! So what! What if someday she lets me kiss each one of her freckles again? She has like a million. But every one of them means something to me. Isn't this how people used to fall in love? I know we're living in Rubenstein's America, like you keep saying. But doesn't that just make us even more responsible for each other's fates? I mean, what if Eunice and I just said no to all this. To this bar. To this FACing. The two of us. What if we just went home and read books to each other?
fall mean thinking
My hair would continue to gray, and then one day, it would fall out entirely, and then, on a day meaninglessly close to the present one, meaninglessly like the present one, I would disappear from the earth. And all these emotions, all these yearnings, all these data, if that helps to clinch the enormity of what I'm talking about, would be gone. And that's what immortality means. It means selfishness. My generations belief that each one of us matters more than you or anyone else would think.
relationship
I have a love/hate relationship with just about everything, but certainly with America.
acting class great indie louise love movies took wife woody
I took an acting class with Louise Lasser, Woody Allen's first wife and co-star in many movies. I've done some other indie films, if you look on the YouTube. I love acting - it's great.
act century club love members minor russian
I'd love to have a 19th Century Russian book club where all the members had to act like the pretentious minor noblemen they were reading about.
people poetry
I think what will happen is that fiction will become more like poetry. As in, the only people who read it will write it.
couple decline feisty love natural
I love things on the decline because that's really the natural progression of our lives. We're born, we're feisty for the first couple of years, and then the inevitable decline begins.
james performing sending writes
In America, everyone writes but no one reads. Everyone's writing all day long - sending emails, tweets, text messages; they all think they're James Cameron's Avatar, performing in some video game for which they make up the script.
cannot doubt humor readers work
Without humor, I cannot go on and I doubt many of my readers would go on either. Humor is so important. I am here to have fun here with my work.
bottom civilization nose pool takes taking
When civilization takes a nose dive, how can you look away? You've got to be there. You've got to be at the bottom of the swimming pool taking notes.
feature tells travel
I like the map feature on the iPhone that tells me where I am, because I travel a lot.
writing voice different
I write five, six days a week. The thing is capturing the voice. I feel like I've been perfecting one voice - in different iterations, sure, but the Russian-ness has always been the undercurrent.