Richard Russo Quotes

They're around back, she calls down when Julie and I get out. Planning their strategy. Good for them, I say, confident that no strategy that isn't grounded in chaos theory is likely to work against a...

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.

About Author

Richard Russo (born July 15, 1949) is an American novelist, short story writer, screenwriter, and teacher. In 2002, he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for his novel Empire Falls. Several of his works have been adapted into television series and movies. He is known for his realistic depictions of rural, small-town life in the Northeastern United States, particularly in Maine, Pennsylvania, and Russo's native Upstate New York.

Odd that the future should be so difficult to bring into focus when the past, uninvited, offered itself up so easily for inspection.

…a story is like a virus that can rage only for as long as there are new hosts to infect.

He wasn't always trying to say witty things, and when he did say them, he felt no need to repeat them for changing company.

The best she was able to do was to reflect that people invariably exhibited the very worst side of their flawed natures when invited to put their thoughts into writing, especially when the invitation...

Not giving a shit, she decided, is like the defrost option on a car's heater that miraculously unfogs the windshield, allowing you to see where you're headed.

The drive back to the Mid-fucking-west was always brutal, his parents barely speaking to each other, as if suddenly recalling last year's infidelities, or maybe contemplating whom they'd settle for th...

Tick's strategy for dealing with lying adults is to say nothing and watch thee lies swell and constrict in their throats. when this happens, the lie takes on a physical life of its own and must be eit...

It's possible to overlook character flaws of in-laws for the simple reason that you feel neither responsible for them nor genetically implicated.

Mr. Purty has cheered me up. The task he has chosen for himself, of wooing my mother with a bright red pickup truck, a Patsy Cline tape, and a string of malapropisms, is ample justification to me for...

She looked like a woman who had spent her whole life waiting in line.

I’ve always known that there’s more going on inside me than finds its way into the world, but this is probably true of everyone. Who doesn’t regret that he isn’t more fully understood?

Probably horse doo had a name in french also, but that didn't mean god intended for you to eat it.

By nature you instinctively seek out the middle road, midway between dangerous passion and soul-destroying indifference.

The truth is, we never know for sure about ourselves. Who we'll sleep with if given the opportunity, who we'll betray in the right circumstance, whose faith and love we will reward with our own. Only...

She never answers during the day, Max explained. She lets her machine pick up.People like you are the reason other people get answering machines to begin with, Miles told him. In fact, people like you...

Knowing and knowing what to do about it were two different things.

My God, he couldn't help thinking, how terrible it is to be that age, to have emotions so near the surface that the slightest turbulence causes them to boil over. That, very simply, was what adulthood...

Alas, he himself was a man too easily encouraged, too completely seduced by hope, only to be devastated by disappointment. He’d been born to privilege, conditioned to expect things would go well, and...