74 Quotes by Russell Smith

What makes a publisher decide to market a book to a particular audience is not the subject matter but the style.

USTR unilateral actions would violate the WTO? That is something that USTR is aware of just as we are aware of it,

Verisimilitude is something I am constantly seeking in fiction. I am looking for surface detail that makes something seem real.

The only pleasurable part of taking the subway, as everyone will agree, is concocting elaborate fantasies about what it would be like to be married to the most interesting strangers you see there.

Only a tiny portion of music history involves a singer and a lyric. Songs in music are generally thought to be a minor form.

My father was a graduate student at Oxford in the early 1960s, where the conventions and etiquette of clothing were crucial to the pervasive class consciousness of the place and time.

Personally, I see little distinction between an artistic mentality and criminality. You couldn't possibly create a compelling story without some wickedness or some fascination with the disgusting. Being good is a hindrance to a writer.

I am indeed completely nuts, but that doesn't mean I don't care about how I look. Sometimes, I admit, I will privilege appearance over comfort.

I am so sick of being exhorted, as a writer, to improve the world by representing it in a more hopeful way.