Etgar Keret Quotes - Page 5

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• Even as a very young man, I knew that my family is like a plant. Uproot it, and it will wilt. Pluck away at it, and it will die. But leave it to thrive in the soil, untouched, and it will weather both gods and winds. It is born with the soil, and it will live so long as the soil shall live.

  Etgar Keret

  Men, Wind, Weather

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• Sometimes, when you are in a really constrained situation, it makes you more focused about what you want to say and where you're heading. The most beautiful love poems that were ever written are sonnets, composed in a very constraining form.

  Etgar Keret

  Beautiful, Want, Sometimes

  "Parables of anarchy". Interview With Hephzibah Anderson, www.theguardian.com. February 12, 2005.

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• He felt full of a dense and sour substance that was blocking his chest, and it wasn't grief. After all those years, life now seemed like no more than a trap, a maze, not even a maze, just a room that was all walls, no door.

  Etgar Keret

  Wall, Block, Grief

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• The fact is that everything I have in my pockets is carefully chosen so I’ll always be prepared. Everything is there so I can be at an advantage at the moment of truth. Actually, that’s not accurate. Everything’s there so I won’t be at a disadvantage at the moment of truth.

  Etgar Keret

  Pockets, Facts, Moments

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• It took a lot to understand that the interest in both writing a story and reading it is not in the objective dangers someone takes. You don't have to fight snakes or wake up in a strange apartment to have a story; it's about what goes on inside your mind and soul.

  Etgar Keret

  Reading, Writing, Fighting

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• In Israel, there is this reduction of the political discourse to something that is very limited. It's as if you have that pitch that only dogs can hear. Sometimes I feel I speak at such a pitch that very few people around me communicate with what I'm saying.

  Etgar Keret

  Dog, Israel, People

  "My country right and wrong". Interview With Rory McCarthy, www.theguardian.com. June 6, 2008.

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• My mother, for example, told the German officer not to kill her. She'd make it worth his while. And then, when they were doing it, she pulled a knife out of her belt and sliced open his chest, just like she used to open chicken breasts to stuff with rice for the Sabbath meal.

  Etgar Keret

  Mother, Knives, Example

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• The reason I write is that I'm not in dialogue with my emotions; writing puts me in touch with myself.

  Etgar Keret

  Writing, Emotion, Reason

  "Parables of anarchy". Interview With Hephzibah Anderson, www.theguardian.com. February 12, 2005.

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• I rarely return to characters. My characters, at least most of them, are much more a part of that superorganism that is the story than separate and independent creatures.

  Etgar Keret

  Character, Independent, Stories

  "This Week in Fiction: Etgar Keret" by Deborah Treisman, www.newyorker.com. December 15, 2011.

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• I was first introduced to Kafka's writing during my compulsory army-service basic training. During that period, Kafka's fiction felt hyperrealistic.

  Etgar Keret

  Writing, Army, Training

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• I always have a story in my head that needs to be written, or at least I think I do. But I usually can't find the time to write it.

  Etgar Keret

  Writing, Thinking, Needs

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• I don't have Facebook or Twitter accounts yet. Being a compulsive storyteller, I always make up for myself discouraging stories about how such accounts will get me into embarrassing and time-consuming situations.

  Etgar Keret

  Stories, Embarrassing, Discouraging

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• When I started writing my stories, I thought that not only nobody outside my language, but nobody outside my neighbourhood would get them.

  Etgar Keret

  Writing, Stories, Language

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• I see creative-writing classes as some sort of AA meeting. It is more of a support group for people who write than an actual course in which you learn writing skills. This support group is extremely important because there is something very lonely about writing.

  Etgar Keret

  Lonely, Writing, Class

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• I tried once in my life to write a novel. I had written something like 80 pages of it when my laptop got stolen. When I told people this, they acted as if something tragic had happened, but I kind of felt relieved, grateful to the thief who saved me from another year of something that felt more like homework than fun.

  Etgar Keret

  Fun, Grateful, Writing

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• What you experience in the army, aged 18 to 21, is what you take through all your life. You cross invisible lines: you shoot someone, get shot, break into people's houses. It's naive to think you won't carry anything into your life.

  Etgar Keret

  Army, Thinking, People

  "Life at a louder volume". Interview With Maya Jaggi, www.theguardian.com. March 16, 2007.

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