Our Country Friends Quotes

“Because rich people were excused from the suffering of the world, they had to invent their own more elaborate and personalized forms of suffering and then to inflict baroque versions of that stunted inferiority onto others.”
― Gary Shteyngart, Our Country Friends

“Self-entitlement is my fuel. It’s the bag of wind that what’s-his-face gives to Odysseus. It”
― Gary Shteyngart, Our Country Friends

“this earth, as a parent, as a lover, as a migrant, as a bird. And if we are to suspend our secular beliefs, even for half a paragraph, we can imagine the migrated souls of all the human ancestors presently at table, looking over their bloodline progeny gathered together over the familiarity of cabbage and fried rice and the unfamiliarity of a meat disk between two circular pieces of bread, happy as parents in a playground when all of the children assembled play together quietly and at peace, and no one’s young feelings are hurt, and everyone will go home still innocent. Of course, by the logic of fiction, we are at a high point now. This respite, this happy family, these four new lovers, this child slowly losing her shyness, all of this must be slated for destruction, no? Because if we were to simply leave them feasting and ecstatic, even as the less fortunate of the world fell deeper into despair, even as hundreds of thousands perished for lack of luck, lack of sympathy, lack of rupees, would we be just in our distribution of happiness? And so we sigh, cross ourselves, mumble the Kaddish, perform our pujas and wudu, all in preparation for the inevitable, which, in this case, comes with the crunch of gravel down the driveway.”
― Gary Shteyngart, Our Country Friends

“But he had to think like a character in a Chekhov play, forever taunted by desires but trapped in a life much too small to accommodate the entirety of a human being. That was why Chekhov was eternally beloved.”
― Gary Shteyngart, Our Country Friends

“Poor Sasha."

"Not meant for these times," Ed said. They were both somehow cheered up by this conversation. "But he means well.”
― Gary Shteyngart, Our Country Friends

“Russian was a language built around the exhalation of warmth and pain....”
― Gary Shteyngart, Our Country Friends

“It’s okay to give up on a dream. The majority of dreams don’t come true. Our whole country is learning as much.”
― Gary Shteyngart, Our Country Friends

“Needless to say, she grew up with the parents Senderovsky could only dream of, the kind that did not watch the state television of their adopted land with its screaming chyrons and grim blond hosts and unimaginative, murderous lies. Masha loved her parents, loved the language of her parents, and wanted Natasha to know the “gift” of her country’s culture. But Senderovsky, despite his Petrogradsky affectations, was still the man from Elektrosila.”
― Gary Shteyngart, Our Country Friends

“What’s that Russian saying about incompetent people trying to pass the blame?” Senderovsky laughed. “ ‘A bad dancer is bothered by his balls.”
― Gary Shteyngart, Our Country Friends

“Joel,”
― Gary Shteyngart, Our Country Friends

“Now before we begin, let me quickly read out the names of the recent victims of police violence.”
― Gary Shteyngart, Our Country Friends

“What do you know?” Karen said to Masha. “You’ll never experience anything like our friendship.” “And you’ll never be a real mother,” Masha said. “Neither will you,” Karen said.”
― Gary Shteyngart, Our Country Friends

“So,” she said, “how many of us have to die for your personal reenactment of The Big Chill?”
― Gary Shteyngart, Our Country Friends

“He looked at Dee in a blaze of heterosexuality.”
― Gary Shteyngart, Our Country Friends

“Senderovsky to Ed:
When I stopped falling in love. My art died.”
― Gary Shteyngart, Our Country Friends

“The Actor to Dee:
You fall in love with yourself first. With who you want to be when interacting with the person you think you're in love with. Then maybe, if you loosen up a little, you fall in love with what the other person really is, but primarily you still love them because of how they enhance you. Now you just have all these backup reasons to love them.”
― Gary Shteyngart, Our Country Friends

“Actor to Senderovsky:
What awes you about the work you do? How does it humble you?”
― Gary Shteyngart, Our Country Friends

“... cheeses so filled with aromatic herbs they inspired memories that had never happened.”
― Gary Shteyngart, Our Country Friends

“cheder, their eyes still glossy with scripture now”
― Gary Shteyngart, Our Country Friends

“Easter would be coming soon, but her mother was still dead.”
― Gary Shteyngart, Our Country Friends

“There Lara had learned, as several of Masha’s patients had learned that morning, about the microchip that was inserted deep into the nasal passage during testing for the virus at the behest of the liberal Hungarian-born billionaire they referred to with maximal spite as “Dzhordzh Tsoris.” The virus, it was now conclusively proved, was engineered by the evil ex-Magyar in a lab as part of an attempt to take over the world through this snotty microchip and return it to the Marxist masters of their youth.”
― Gary Shteyngart, Our Country Friends

“But now he wondered if the Asian girl at the end of the commercials was not there to sell the Hostess spurting pastry or whatnot, but rather to sell America. Like the Statue of Liberty showing off her armpit at the end of the Sure commercial, the girl spoke more to a Cold War ideal of America--look who we let in! Hardworking Asians! Whereas a Vinod-type presence in one of his white V-neck sweaters (all three brothers wore them on special occasions, cute as lambs) might have confused the audience. Why isn't that Brown guy selling us a taco shell that won't break?”
― Gary Shteyngart, Our Country Friends

“That spring and summer it became impossible to glance out the window without entertaining questions of physics, of multiverses collapsing onto themselves, of time lines breaking off like Antarctic ice shelves. Was all this really happening: masks and tyrants, aerosol sprays and gun-toting clowns?”
― Gary Shteyngart, Our Country Friends

“Honesty and grace. You can try to find something better beyond that, but you won't.”
― Gary Shteyngart, Our Country Friends

“As soon as one acquired a liberal education, huge parts of life became an elaborate joke. Maybe that's what you paid for when your parents' check cleared with the bursar--the rights to the joke.”
― Gary Shteyngart, Our Country Friends

“He worried that when he would speak of the past, he would sound and look old, as all ancient storytelling men did.”
― Gary Shteyngart, Our Country Friends

“Maybe there really only was one singular white man staring down at the world from his official boots and his official vehicle and his official sunglasses hanging high over his official smirk.”
― Gary Shteyngart, Our Country Friends

“Yes, the revolution was coming for them, too. How many revolutions would they have to live through during the never-ending historicity of their goddamned lives?”
― Gary Shteyngart, Our Country Friends

“At the mouth of the state highway, away from the liberal estates, they were putting up blue flags supporting the police. Senderovsky saw them on a walk and shuddered at the way the flags flew, stiff and new, as if unsure of themselves and their capacity to instill fear. In case the point of the flags wasn't subtle enough, muscular dogs ran down one property's minor hill to growl at passersby. (Karen and Nat avoided the house on their walks because the unchained dogs frightened them.) Imagine what it would take for Senderovsky, the owner of the largest (by area) estate on the road, to ring that doorbell (after evading the dogs) and demand (beg?) for the flag to be taken down? What would he say? "Sir, it offends me"? "Sir, I'm scared." The whole point was to offend him. The whole point was to make him scared.”
― Gary Shteyngart, Our Country Friends

“As an immigrant his mission had been simple. He was brought here by his parents to make money off what an important Jewish author had once termed "the American berserk." You came, they laughed at your accent on an urban playground, and then you were given your degrees and guided into battle. By which point, you were just a scab sent in to reinforce the established order. In the video, as the white policeman was draining the air from his Black victim's lungs with his knee, another cop, a Hmong immigrant, stood in front of him in a wide-open stance, daring anyone to come to the dying man's aid. He could have been a Russian, a Korean, a Gujarati. All of us, Senderovsky thought, are in service to an order that has long predated us. All of us have come to feast on this land of bondage. And all of us are useful and expendable in turn.”
― Gary Shteyngart, Our Country Friends