Richard Russo - People Quotes

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People sometimes get in the habit of being loyal to a mistake.

Richard Russo
If you paid me for work," continued Max, whose rhetoric was more sophisticated than you might expect from a man with food in his beard, "I wouldn't have to feel worthless. There's not law says old people have to feel worthless all the while, you know. You paid me, I'd have some dignity." Now it was Mile's turn to nod and smile agreeably. "I think the dignity ship set sail a long time ago, Dad.

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. Here's the thing. Most of what we witness in life is too complex to take in whole. Because of this we unconsciously edit what we see, select what to really record and what to ignore, which is why people who look at the same thing don't necessarily see the same thing... Comic writers don't so much invent funny things as strip away the distractions, the impediments to laughter.

Richard Russo
Have you ever noticed that when people use the expression 'I have to say', what follows usually needn't be said?

Richard Russo
He'd discovered that his memories of that summer were like bad movie montages - young lovers tossing a Frisbee in the park, sharing a melting ice-cream cone, bicycling along the river, laughing, talking, kissing, a sappy score drowning out the dialogue because the screenwriter had no idea what these two people might say to each other.

Richard Russo
After all, what was the whole wide world but a place for people to yearn for their heart's impossible desires, for those desires to become entrenched in defiance of logic, plausibility, and even the passage of time, as eternal as polished marble.

Richard Russo
Were it not for Occam's Razor, which always demands simplicity, I'd be tempted to believe that human beings are more influenced by distant causes than immediate ones. This would especially be true of overeducated people, who are capable of thinking past the immediate, of becoming obsessed by the remote. It's the old stuff, the conflicts we've never come to terms with, that sneaks up on us, half forgotten, insisting upon action.

Richard Russo
People who imagine themselves to be self-made seldom enjoy examining the process of manufacture in detail.

Richard Russo
I'm not an easy man. I can be an entertaining one, though it's been my experience that most people don't want to be entertained. They want to be comforted.

Richard Russo