Keith Gessen Quotes

#1. And so in addition to lots of reading, the life of an editor involves constantly trying to get others to read as well.

Keith Gessen

#2. The sanatorium itself was charming, a group of cabins in the woods, a place for overworked urbanites to feel pleasantly melancholic. A slackertorium.

Keith Gessen

#3. One changes, as a writer, fairly quickly; what you wrote six months or a year ago might not sound right anymore.

Keith Gessen

#4. She had such control of tone, in her text messages, she was the Edith Wharton of text messaging.

Keith Gessen

#5. You say that like she edited Ulysses," I said. "I don't care!" said my friend. "It was a No. 1 best-seller!" VII.

Keith Gessen

#6. I think Yelena Akhtiorskaya is a genius. What she manages to do, linguistically and emotionally, in the span of a single sentence, is astonishing.

Keith Gessen

#7. He was getting to be a certain age, he thought. It was the age when his never-to-be-written masterpieces had begun to outweigh the masterpieces he was still going to write.

Keith Gessen

#8. Fame - fame was the anti-death. But it seemed to slither from his grasp, seemed to giggle and retreat, seemed to hide behind a huge oak tree and make farting sounds with its hands.

Keith Gessen

#9. Honestly," he says, "I judge writers on how they write queries. If you're a good writer, you're a good writer." And if not, then not.

Keith Gessen