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On That Night I Was Left With Only The Truth That Nothing Of Our Personality Survives After Death, That In The End All That Was Misha Vainberg Would Evaporate Along With The Styles And Delusions Of His Epoch, Leaving Behind Not One Flutter Of His Sad Heavy Brilliance, Not One Damp Spot Around Which His Successors Could Congregate To Appreciate His Life And Times.

-Gary Shteyngart

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On That Night I

Gary Shteyngart

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On That Night I Was Left With Only The Truth That Nothing Of Our Personality Survives After Death, That In The End All That Was Misha Vainberg Would Evaporate Along With The Styles And Delusions Of His Epoch, Leaving Behind Not One Flutter Of His Sad Heavy Brilliance, Not One Damp Spot Around Which His Successors Could Congregate To Appreciate His Life And Times.

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After You Publish A Book, You Become A Writer And You're Supposed To Take It Very Seriously. You're Supposed To Show Up At Your Desk - Although Frankly, I Don't Have A Desk, I Write In Bed - You're Supposed To Show Up At Your Bed And Produce Work. I Think It's A Little Bit Like Work. I Like To Have Fun With It, Do Things Like Make Silly Book Trailers. I Don't Want To Take This Too Seriously.

Communications Devices Were Always Used To Effect Change, To Effect Revolution. Telephone, Telegraph - These All Seemed Like Very Big Enhancements At The Time.

One Should Learn From A Book. Books Have A Lot To Teach Us. They Have A Lot Of Empathy To Impart To Us, But They Should Also Be Fun. This Stuff Is Fun! You Shouldn't Pick Up A Book And Say, "oh My God, I'm Gonna Better Myself By Reading This." You May Better Yourself By Reading This, But Who Cares? Just Have Fun.

My Parents Were Constantly Afraid They Would Lose Their Jobs. The Idea That We Were Always A Paycheck Away From Disaster Was Drilled Into Me.

One Of The Goals Of Analysis Is You Become Your Own Analyst. You Continue The Process Even If You're Not In Therapy, Whether You Continue The Process By Walking Down The Street Thinking About Things Or Whether You Continue The Process, As I Do, By Writing About Them.

I Was A Jackass In Many Ways. I Projected That Cruelty Towards Others, That Kid Whose Hand I Was Wringing. If I Could Have Hurt A Hundred Weaklings - Weaker Than Me, And I Was Already Very Weak - I Would. I Was Dying To Hurt Somebody, To Pay It Forward.

Freedom Is Anathema To Dreams Nurtured In Captivity.

Every Returning New Yorker Asks The Question: Is This Still My City? I Have A Ready Answer, Cloaked In Obstinate Despair: It Is. And If It's Not, I Will Love It All The More. I Will Love It To The Point Where It Becomes Mine Again.

I Am Born Hungry. Ravenous. I Want To Eat The World, And I Can Never Be Satiated.

In America, The Distance Between Wanting Something And Having It Delivered To Your Living Room Is Not Terribly Great.

Getting Out Of Russia Was The Best Thing My Parents Did. I Mean, That Country Will Never Amount To Anything.

I Write Five, Six Days A Week. The Thing Is Capturing The Voice. I Feel Like I've Been Perfecting One Voice - In Different Iterations, Sure, But The Russian-ness Has Always Been The Undercurrent.

The Greatest Books In Russian Literature Are Satires. Gogol's Dead Souls, For Example, Is A Very Over-the-top Satire About Life In Russia. I Think It's The Thing We Do Best.

Reading Is Difficult. People Just Aren't Meant To Read Anymore. We're In A Post-literate Age. You Know, A Visual Age. How Many Years After The Fall Of Rome Did It Take For A Dante To Appear? Many, Many Years.

My Mother Cranes Her Neck. Her Ability To Be Fascinated By Things Is Her Best Gift To Me.

We Are Now Part Of This Giant Machine Where Every Second We Have To Take Out A Device And Contribute Our Thoughts And Opinions.

Before My First Novel, I Was Dating A Woman Who Later Went To Prison For Bashing A Guy With A Hammer.

I Don't Have Many Possessions, Apart From My Books.

I Felt The Weakness Of These Books, Their Immateriality, How They Had Failed To Change The World, And I Didn't Want To Sully Myself With Their Weakness Anymore.

Life For Young American College Graduates Is A Festive Affair. Free Of Having To Support Their Families, They Mostly Have Gay Parties On Rooftops Where They Reflect At Length Upon Their Quirky Electronic Childhoods And Sometimes Kiss Each Other On The Lips And Neck.

It Is A Capital Insult In This Country Not To Make Love To A Naked Woman, Even If She Is Related To You.

I'm The Fortieth Ugliest Man In This Bar. But So What! So What!... Isn't This How People Used To Fall In Love?

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I Was Very, Very Sick When I Was Growing Up In Russia. The Ambulance Constantly Came To Our House. I Had Horrible Asthma That Is Easily Treated In America, But They Didn't Even Have Inhalers Back In Russia.

I Have My Own Dying Empire To Contend With, And I Do Not Wish For Any Other.

Reading Is Entering Into The Consciousness Of Another Human Being.

The Radio Station Was Playing Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, A Sure Sign That Things Were Much Worse Than They Appeared.

America Should Treasure Its Rare, True Original Voices And Mark Leyner Is One Of Them. So Treasure Him Already, You Bastards!

I Love Paul Giamatti - God, That Man Is Like A Walking Chekhov. His Connection To Humanity Is Unbelievable, And Those Feelings Of Low Self-esteem - The Way That All Comes Together On The Screen? Delicious.

I Have Some Memories Of Certain Things That Happened In High School When I Was Stoned Out Of My Mind, But I Talked With Other People About Them, And I Trusted The Aggregated Memories.

In A Strange Way, I Expected Russia To Become More Like America Since The Soviet Union Collapsed, But The Reverse Is True. America Has Become More Like Russia: A Kleptocratic Society.

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On That Night I Was Left With Only The Truth That Nothing Of Our Personality Survives After Death, That In The End All That Was Misha Vainberg Would Evaporate Along With The Styles And Delusions Of His Epoch, Leaving Behind Not One Flutter Of His Sad Heavy Brilliance, Not One Damp Spot Around Which His Successors Could Congregate To Appreciate His Life And Times.

I Read Real Books. On Paper. You Know, Those Printed Books? I Feel Like This Is The Last Thing I Do To Support My Industry. I Think They Smell Great, Too.

The Only Way To Write About Right Now Is To Write About The Future.

Let's See If I Can Write About Something Other Than My Heart.

You Are Not What You Want. You Are What Wants You Back.

I Was Really Not A Good Student, And I Felt That Shame Every Day. That's One Of The Reasons I Started Smoking Pot And Drinking Daily.

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I Write Almost Entirely In Bed Or On A Couch With My Feet Up On The Coffee Table. I Feel Most Creative When Im Looking Out The Window, And My Bed And Couch Have Nice Views Of The New York Skyline.

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