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Rebecca Makkai Quotes
Despite its challenges, the novel offers an opportunity to live in one story for years of your imaginative life. There's a tremendous richness to that.
~ Rebecca Makkai
Challenges
Despite
Imaginative
Life
Live
Novel
Offers
Opportunity
Richness
Story
Tremendous
Years
Your
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I did teach elementary school for quite a while, and so I didn't have to reach too far back for the titles and authors that populate the early chapters 'of The Borrower.'
~ Rebecca Makkai
Authors
Back
Borrower
Chapters
Did
Early
Elementary
Elementary School
Far
Quite
Quite A While
Reach
School
Teach
Titles
Too
While
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I grew up writing. It was very natural in my household. My father was a poet, and his mother had been a novelist back in Hungary. I don't think I really thought about it being my career until high school, which is still pretty early, but it was a while there of just assuming this was something everyone did all day long.
~ Rebecca Makkai
About
All Day
Assuming
Back
Been
Being
Career
Day
Did
Early
Everyone
Father
Grew
Had
High
High School
His
Household
Hungary
Just
Long
Mother
Natural
Novelist
Poet
Pretty
Really
School
Something
Still
Think
Thought
Until
Up
Very
Which
While
Writing
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I have the distinct feeling that when I'm old, and I look back on my life, my thirties will be one huge blur. There's a lot that gets neglected: exercise, dishes, laundry, my poor garden. I try to prioritize the important but non-urgent things over the unimportant but urgent things.
~ Rebecca Makkai
Back
Blur
Dishes
Distinct
Exercise
Feeling
Garden
Gets
Huge
Important
Laundry
Life
Look
Lot
My Life
Neglected
Old
Over
Poor
Prioritize
Things
Thirties
Try
Unimportant
Urgent
Will
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I taught myself to read when I was three by comparing the letters in my Mother Goose book with the rhymes I had memorised.
~ Rebecca Makkai
Book
Comparing
Goose
Had
Letters
Mother
Myself
Read
Rhymes
Taught
Three
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In a short story, you can use someone - we're only going to be with that person for maybe 10 pages, and they can have sort of a one note personality. And in a novel, you need to have arrows pointing more than one direction for that person.
~ Rebecca Makkai
Arrows
Direction
Going
Maybe
More
Need
Note
Novel
Only
Pages
Person
Personality
Pointing
Short
Someone
Sort
Story
Than
Use
You
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I've only cried at one book, but I'm too embarrassed to tell you which. It wasn't terribly intellectual. I will admit, though, to crying when I've read books aloud to my elementary class. We read a biography of Gandhi once, and it was very difficult to read the part where Gandhi was killed, because they were waiting for a happy ending.
~ Rebecca Makkai
Admit
Aloud
Because
Biography
Book
Books
Class
Cried
Crying
Difficult
Elementary
Embarrassed
Ending
Gandhi
Happy
Happy Ending
Intellectual
Once
One Book
Only
Part
Read
Tell
Terribly
Though
Too
Very
Waiting
Were
Where
Which
Will
You
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My sister's a musician. Everyone else in our family, it's either academics or artists of one kind or another. And those are the people that I think I like to hang out with, too. I think, you know, they're always interesting; they lead interesting lives, and I think they're important for everyone to read about because everyone is an artist in a way.
~ Rebecca Makkai
About
Academics
Always
Another
Artist
Artists
Because
Either
Else
Everyone
Everyone Else
Family
Hang
I Think
Important
Interesting
Kind
Know
Lead
Like
Lives
Musician
Our
Out
People
Read
Sister
Think
Those
Too
Way
You
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Novelist and poet David Huddle is a quiet but fabulous writer, and he does adolescent longing better than anyone I know.
~ Rebecca Makkai
Adolescent
Anyone
Better
David
Does
Fabulous
He
Know
Longing
Novelist
Poet
Quiet
Than
Writer
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Sometimes I wish I could go back through time to meet Proust, just so I could give him my asthma inhaler. The poor guy.
~ Rebecca Makkai
Asthma
Back
Could
Give
Go
Guy
Him
I Wish
Just
Meet
Poor
Sometimes
Through
Time
Wish
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The times I've tried not to be funny, it's never worked, and the times I'm trying not to be dark and just be funny, that never works, either. As varied as my subject matter is, I think the worldview is pretty consistent: seeing darkness and seeing humor.
~ Rebecca Makkai
Consistent
Dark
Darkness
Either
Funny
Humor
I Think
Just
Just Be
Matter
Never
Pretty
Seeing
Subject
Subject Matter
Think
Times
Tried
Trying
Varied
Worked
Works
Worldview
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There's a great social component to being a writer, to being an artist.
~ Rebecca Makkai
Artist
Being
Component
Great
Social
Writer
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We're all going about trying to make beauty in the world and trying to make order out of chaos. And that's what art is.
~ Rebecca Makkai
About
Art
Beauty
Chaos
Going
Make
Order
Out
Trying
World
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copy
When you talk to an author - to any artist, really - you learn something about how they do what they do. I've never come away from that kind of experience feeling disillusioned, as if the magician had explained his tricks. I always find a greater appreciation for the form.
~ Rebecca Makkai
About
Always
Any
Appreciation
Artist
Author
Away
Come
Disillusioned
Experience
Explained
Feeling
Find
Form
Greater
Had
His
How
Kind
Learn
Magician
Never
Really
Something
Talk
Tricks
You
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With short stories, you can always see the whole, but it's just so hard to get everything you want into that small form.
~ Rebecca Makkai
Always
Everything
Form
Get
Hard
Just
See
Short
Short Stories
Small
Stories
Want
Whole
You
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Writing a short story is like painting a picture on the head of a pin. And just getting everything to fit is - sometimes seems impossible. Writing a novel, though, is - has its own challenges of scope. And I think of that as painting a mural, where the challenge is that if you are close enough to work on it, you're too close to see the whole thing.
~ Rebecca Makkai
Challenge
Challenges
Close
Enough
Everything
Fit
Getting
Head
I Think
Impossible
Just
Like
Mural
Novel
Own
Painting
Picture
Pin
Scope
See
Seems
Short
Sometimes
Story
Thing
Think
Though
Too
Where
Whole
Work
Writing
You
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AuthorName
Rebecca Makkai
Profession
Novelist
BirthDate
20 April, 1978
Country
United States
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