Quotes from Gary Shteyngart

Good fucking Christ. What is this, an iPhone?" He

We lived in a country that rewarded its worst people. We lived in a society where the villains were favored to win.

The fact that my sexual awakening peripherally involves Steve Guttenberg I have gradually accepted.

Needless to say, she grew up with the parents Senderovsky could only dream of, the kind that did not watch the state television of their adopted land with its screaming chyrons and grim blond hosts and unimaginative, murderous lies. Masha loved her parents, loved the language of her parents, and wanted Natasha to know the "gift" of her country's culture. But Senderovsky, despite his Petrogradsky affectations, was still the man from Elektrosila.

The reflexive sense of wonder, of crying over a medal of the Madonna del Granduca and not knowing why, will be mostly replaced by survival and knowing perfectly well why. And survival will mean replacing the love of the beautiful with the love of what is funny, humor being the last resort of the besieged Jew, especially when he is placed among his own kind.

Like there's any difference between the quality of "news" since the Media's gone out.

I was proud of New York, now more than ever, for it had survived something another city would have not: its own rage.

in the bathroom where we Post-Human Services men took our lengthy organic shits, straining to be free of whatever greenery tormented us. On

You have to realize that, compared with the Korean brand of Confucianism, Christianity is a walk in the park. Compared with what came before, Protestantism is almost a freaking liberation theology.

She told me I was a nerd, but a nerd who made her laugh. I told her I wanted to do more than make her laugh. She told me I should be thankful for what I had. I told her she should move to New York with me. She told me she was probably a lesbian. I told her my work was my life, but I still had room for love. She told me love was out of the question.

The goal of politics is to make us children. The more heinous the system the more this is true.

TIMATOV," which I've learned means Think I'm About to Openly Vomit

Easter would be coming soon, but her mother was still dead.

Aberdeen, a city in the northern reaches of HSBC-London. Their

People who think literature should be Serious—should serve as a blueprint for a rocket that will never take off—are malevolent at best, anti-Semitic at worst.

my books only know the minds of their authors.

SALLYSTAR: That's why I'm never going to be in a relationship. I'm just going to get married.

a dessert made out of a dozen matzohs, a gallon of cream and amaretto liqueur, and a tub of raspberries. What I believe my mother is aiming for is a mille-feuille, or, in Russian, a tort Napoleon. The result is a vaguely Passover-based departure from pastry reality. In deference to its point of origin, she likes to call it "French.

IT IS FORBIDDEN TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE EXISTENCE OF THIS CHECKPOINT ('THE OBJECT'). BY READING THIS SIGN YOU HAVE DENIED EXISTENCE OF THE OBJECT AND IMPLIED CONSENT.

Barry had always wondered why people who were just upper-middle class in New York chose to stay there, given that they could live like minor dictators in the rest of the country. "You're negative arbing yourself," he used to say.

But in the last message I got right before they ambushed his ass he basically said, David, you are a dreamer and a disgrace and you'll never get your shit together, and I'll always fight everything you believe in, but I'll also never love anyone more than you, so if anything happens to me just keep going the way you are.

There's something outrageously simple about extending yourself toward a goal the way a plant seeks the sun's rays or a gopher the crunch of easy soil beneath his paws, and then getting exactly what you want , sunshine or some prized tuber.

The night was warm and windy, a perfect Manhattan I-don't-want-to-die kind of night

If they can make a fabulous gay man work like that, I thought, what can they do to the rest of us?