Quotes from Ian Frazier

I am an author, and like many in my profession, I am also a traveling salesman, going all over in an attempt to persuade people to spend twenty-five dollars on a hardcover book by me.

People in Russia adapt to misery by a deep, deep humor.

Russian humor is to adapt or make some sense or nonsense out of the insanity of their lives.

I'm one of those people who happen to like trees. I don't know why - I just do. As a kid, I loved to climb them. The distant, upper branches, especially, were celestial and alluring.

When I needed to think or was really upset, generally I climbed a tree.

Human connection is the way things work. It's like a patronage system. You know somebody, and he knows somebody, and he knows somebody, and he knows the district governor, and it's okay.

I don't want to collect Indian art, though pots and beadwork and blankets made by Indians remain the most beautiful art objects in the American West, in my opinion.

America to me is so varied and exciting. I always feel nostalgia for the place I'm not in, and then I get there and find myself in a traffic jam going into the Lincoln Tunnel, and I think, 'God, why was I romanticizing this part of the country?' I think it has to do with the romantic, unrealistic temperament.

Every once in a while, people need to be in the presence of things that are really far away.

Sometimes travel is merely an opportunity taken when you can.

Siberia is so big, it's almost more an idea than a place

Scientists estimate that the Siberian permafrost holds the remains of 150 million mammoths—or about 8 million more than the 142 million Russians aboveground in Russia today.

She said being inside a language was like being in a person's house - after a while you came to see why the teapot was where it was.

It reflects like an optical instrument and responds to changes in the weather so sensitively that it seems like a part of the sky rather than of the land. And along with all that, Baikal is distinctly Asiatic: if a camel caravan could somehow transport Baikal across Siberia to Europe, and curious buyers unwrapped it in a marketplace, none would mistake it for a lake from around there.

Then a beat-up car lurched into sight towing an even more beat-up car. As the cars came near, I saw that they were connected back to front by a loop made of two seat belts buckled to each other. That was the only time I ever saw a Russian use a seat belt for any purpose at all.

One very important key to maintaining our daily sanity is a simple scheduling tactic I call Putting Things the Hell Off.

Katya talked about how the Russian language is being destroyed by poor education and by the sloppiness of nonnative speakers who ignore case endings and have no conception of verb aspects and don't care. You find the worst speech in the street markets, she said. She called the new, bad Russian that's spreading everywhere "market language" (bazarnii yazyk).

In Russia, meanwhile, dedicated young people kept trying to kill the tsar.

I don't want to participate in traditional Indian religious ceremonies - dance in a sun dance or pray in a sweat lodge or go on a vision quest with the help of a medicine man. The power of these ceremonies has an appeal, but I'm content with what little religion I already have.

Writing humor for me is more like a watchful-ness. You have to watch. When you say something funny, or someone else does, it's more like you wait for the piece.