217 Quotes by Richard Russo

Which is why we have spouses and children and parents and colleagues and friends, because someone has to know us better than we know ourselves. We need them to tell us. We need them to say, "I know you, Al. You are not the kind of man who.

And there comes a time in your life when you realize that if you don't take the opportunity to be happy, you may never get another chance again.

I think a lot of what is going on with kids who get pushed too far and attempt either murder or suicide is that they are trying to deal with their own non-existence for the people who are supposed to care most for them.

People in small towns, much more than in cities, share a destiny.

America has always been a nation of small places, and as we lose them, we're losing part of ourselves.

HBO is really famous for hiring good people and staying out of their way until they ask for help, or need it. And that reputation is earned.

Not everyone writes well from a child's point of view.

I have to have a character worth caring about. I tend not to start writing books about people I don't have a lot of sympathy for because I'm just going to be with them too long.

I was pretty dead set against ever writing an academic novel. It's always been my view that there are already more than enough academic novels and that most of them aren't any good. Most of them are self-conscious and bitter, the work of people who want to settle grudges.