Quotes from Richard Russo

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 was sanctioned hit-and-run posing as democracy in action. Here

people invariably exhibited the very worst side of their flawed natures when invited to put their thoughts into writing, especially when the invitation was sanctioned hit-and-run posing as democracy in action.

He often did offend women without meaning to or even knowing how he'd managed.

Since turning in his resignation, he'd been wondering what he might do next. Suddenly his path seemed clear. He would become an alcoholic. He

I know," Peter said, zipping Will's jacket. The little boy, who had apparently had his throat zipped into his zipper at some point, always put his mittened hand beneath his chin to prevent it from happening again. Sully

Vera had often awakened feeling frisky, an enthusiasm that had seldom survived breakfast. Sully attributed this to her Puritan upbringing. Some girls you just had to catch before they woke up enough to remember who they were.

Some phrases were truly magical in their ability to dredge up the past from the bottom of life's lake, and for Sully, like all errant fathers, "Don't tell your mother" was such a phrase. He hadn't used it in about thirty years. But the words were right there, anxious to be spoken again after so long, a holy incantation. It was the phrase he'd been born to speak

There was something about spending money they didn't really have that made him optimistic about more coming in.

I read some good books that summer, along with a great many bad ones, and I liked them all. Off in my own retreat and my own world

They got their own name in French," she reminded Miss Beryl, stealthily exchanging her soiled cloth napkin for a fresh one at an adjacent table. "Escargot." There's also a word in English, Miss Beryl had pointed out. Snail. Probably horse doo had a name in French also, but that didn't mean God intended for you to eat it.

I began to develop a firm conviction that most efforts to teach people things were wasted. All they needed was to go off some place quiet and read.

Randall continued to hear the fundamental insincerity of the man, but also knew that the most effective lies were those liberally laced with truth. The lie could be ninety-nine parts truth to one part falsehood, the one tarnished part mingling with the pure until it was all tainted, more false than pure fabrication.

island's handful of cops can't enforce it when people ignore the signs and stroll the three miles up from the public beach. Connor is rumored to have set his dogs on such trespassers, even to have chased them off in his dune buggy. When we climb the last dune, I'm pleasantly distracted by the scene before us—the sun a few degrees above the water, miles of deserted sand in either direction, the crashing of the waves. Indeed, it has

Man starts thinking this late in life, no previous experience or proper guidance, there's no telling where it could lead.

What did it mean that he had so little access to something as straightforward as what he really wanted?

It's none of your business anyhow," Wirf said. Words to live by, Sully had to admit. But he kept hearing Peter's mockery. Not really his dog. Not really his house. Not really his business. And there were other not reallys as well. There

Sully always maintained that if you had ten guys working on a rock pile, Rub would be the last you'd fire for laziness. Only when you'd fired all the others would you realize that Rub had not yet addressed his first rock.

Because—and don't let anybody tell you different—novel writing is mostly triage (this now, that later) and obstinacy.

people cling to folly as if it were their most prized possession, defending it, sometimes with violence, against the possibility of wisdom. It

In my own way, I too was unable to execute his wishes. He'd begged me before I left that afternoon when he'd tried to go home to stay away from the hospital, now that it was just a matter of time. But I couldn't, and toward the end I saw in his eyes each time that I appeared beside his bed that he was glad to see me, and scared as hell of dying alone. Which he ended up doing anyway. The

The one life we're left with is sufficient to fill and refill our imperfect hearts with joy, and then to shatter them. And it never, ever lets up. Blame love.

I remember vividly wishing she wouldn't do that, that she'd let him arrange his thoughts and feelings the way he wanted. After all, how does one invalidate a powerful feeling? Not with logic, surely.

everybody romanticized old people, seeing in them their own lost parents and grandparents, most of whom had bequeathed to their children the usual legacy of guilt, along with the gift of selective recollection.

Like I said, what makes people tick isn't neccessarily what makes them good. Fast-forward