175 Quotes by Gary Shteyngart

You are not what you want. You are what wants you back.

A man that rich couldn't be stupid. Or, Seema thought now, was that the grand fallacy of twenty-first-century America?

Reading is entering into the consciousness of another human being.

What she missed most about dating men was that small, disconcerting time frame when you thought that maybe you could change them.

Reading is difficult. People just aren't meant to read anymore. We're in a post-literate age. You know, a visual age. How many years after the fall of Rome did it take for a Dante to appear? Many, many years.

Rumination is the coin of my realm. Interiority breeds interiority.

How can we read when people need our help? It's a luxury. A stupid luxury.

It was the one time in my life I did something without thinking it through. People like me, people like you, all we think about is consequences. Practically from the day we're born. And look at our fucking lives.

Hush, child. Don't be so hard on yourself. Everyone gets to start over again. This America, hon. One dream dies, you get another.