Quotes from David Bezmozgis

In my experience of women, women have a greater capacity. Maybe women, even very pragmatic ones, are less guarded about showing emotions.

There are books like Darkness at Noon, which from the prose standpoint I don't think is a perfect book. It has flaws. But for its time, it was very politically courageous.

I spent seven years writing The Free World. There are a lot of things I accomplished there that I'm very proud of, but I didn't want to spend another seven years writing a book like that.

When you write a book, you want to have fidelity to the character. Characters and their emotions guide the structure of the novel.

I would say that one walks hand in hand with fate. Fate pulls in one direction, you pull in the other. You follow fate; fate follows you. And it is not always possible to say who is leading whom.

This is what I discovered during my imprisonment. I saw the human character in its naked form. I saw at one end a narrow rank of villainy, and at the other a narrow rank of virtue. In the middle was everyone else. And I understood that the state of the world is the result of the struggle between these two extremes.

A measure of earth under your feet that you could call your own. Was there a more primitive concept? But nobody lives in the ether.

caesarian scar. Now that they were safely in Rome, they needed

If you think there's no choice, look harder. There is always a choice. A third way, if not a fourth. Whether we have the strength to make those choices is another matter. Of which I am no less guilty than anyone else.

Call it curiosity. Call it instinct. And I am a man who has followed his instincts. —I thought it was principles. —In my experience, they're one and the same.

Sooner or later, the realization arrives: the child discovers the immaturity of the parent, and the parent the maturity of his child.