Author: Richard Russo

Sympathy

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.

Richard Russo

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.

Relationship

If my career continues along its current arc people will probably look at me and see a writer who is obsessed with the relationship between rich and poor and with how the rich somehow or other always manage to betray the poor even when they don't mean to.

Richard Russo

If my career continues along its current arc people will probably look at me and see a writer who is obsessed with the relationship between rich and poor and with how the rich somehow or other always manage to betray the poor even when they don't mean to.

Nature

I think that if people are instructed about anything it should be about the nature of cruelty. And about why people behave so cruelly to each other. And what kind of satisfactions they derive from it. And why there is always a cost and a price to be paid.

Richard Russo

I think that if people are instructed about anything it should be about the nature of cruelty. And about why people behave so cruelly to each other. And what kind of satisfactions they derive from it. And why there is always a cost and a price to be paid.

Movies

Movies have to handle time very efficiently. They're about stringing scenes together in the present. Novels aren't necessarily about that.

Richard Russo

Movies have to handle time very efficiently. They're about stringing scenes together in the present. Novels aren't necessarily about that.

Imagination

My books are elegiac in the sense that they're odes to a nation that even I sometimes think may not exist anymore except in my memory and my imagination.

Richard Russo

My books are elegiac in the sense that they're odes to a nation that even I sometimes think may not exist anymore except in my memory and my imagination.

Humor

I never worry about people not taking my work seriously as a result of the humor. In the end the comic's best trick is the illusion that comedy is effortless. That people imagine what he's doing is easy is an occupational hazard.

Richard Russo

I never worry about people not taking my work seriously as a result of the humor. In the end the comic's best trick is the illusion that comedy is effortless. That people imagine what he's doing is easy is an occupational hazard.

Humor

At the risk of appearing disingenuous I don't really think of myself as 'writing humor.' I'm simply reporting on the world I observe which is frequently hilarious.

Richard Russo

At the risk of appearing disingenuous I don't really think of myself as 'writing humor.' I'm simply reporting on the world I observe which is frequently hilarious.

Home

About 15 years ago I went though a period of a year or so when I just couldn't find anything good. My wife noticed I was having trouble reading menus. I bought some cheap reading glasses in a drug store. I got home and suddenly all these books that weren't good were good.

Richard Russo

About 15 years ago I went though a period of a year or so when I just couldn't find anything good. My wife noticed I was having trouble reading menus. I bought some cheap reading glasses in a drug store. I got home and suddenly all these books that weren't good were good.

Health

I don't think there's a shortage of material in the world. Or in my head. I just pray for continued good health because I've got other stories to tell.

Richard Russo

I don't think there's a shortage of material in the world. Or in my head. I just pray for continued good health because I've got other stories to tell.