Russell Banks Quotes

10 Sourced Quotes

I've got nothing against outsiders, per se, you understand. It's just that you have to love a town before you can live in it right, and you have to live in it before you can love it right. Otherwise, you're a parasite of sorts.

Russell Banks
Let the truth take care of itself, I decided. It's done all right on its own so far.

Russell Banks
Boys like it when you talk to them as if they were grown men — at least he always did when he was a kid — because they pretend that's what they are anyhow, grown-up men, and they do it for their entire lives.

Russell Banks
When you have never done a thing before and that thing is not simply and clearly right or wrong, you frequently do not know if it is a cruel thing, you just go ahead and do it. Maybe later you'll be able to determine whether you acted cruelly. Too late, of course, but at least you'll know.

Russell Banks
One of the most difficult things to say to another person is, I hope that you will love me for no good reason. But it is what we all want and rarely dare to say to one another — to our children, to our parents and mates, to our friends, and to strangers.

Russell Banks
Public libraries are the sole community centers left in America. The degree to which a branch of the local library is connected to the larger culture is a reflection of the degree to which the community itself is connected to the larger culture.

Russell Banks
Our obsession with each other was like the isolation that comes with great pain; it was like extreme sadness.

Russell Banks
But when you're a kid it's like you're wearing these binoculars strapped to your eyes and you can't see anything except what's in the dead center of the lenses.

Russell Banks
It's hard to know more about a person's life than what that person wants you to know.

Russell Banks
Our sins describe us, and our prohibitions describe our sins.

Russell Banks