The tears loosen their memories so they can slide away. They cry at the life they have lost, and then they cry at everything they’ll forget.
AKHIL SHARMAPeople often need to describe things quickly and so they use a shorthand. The problem is that after they use a label, they begin to think only in terms of the label instead of the totality of the experience a novel provides.
More Akhil Sharma Quotes
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Also, I have to assume that readers are sophisticated enough to know that not every person in a community is the same, and so there are many people who would not force an abortion just because a fetus is female.
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Certainly the details of our life are unique. Spending time thinking of how I am different from someone else, however, does not tend to be very productive.
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For me, a memoir is nonfiction and nonfiction has to be absolutely true.
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As a teacher, I can help my students see what is working and not working. I can show them certain solutions.
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We all become afraid. We all look at others and think these other people are more fortunate than us.
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It is hard to create a first-person narrator that can be a child and yet is able to take in enough information for the narrative to be legible to the reader.
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I tend to think that we are all pretty much alike. We all feel despair. We all have problems with relationships.
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The little babies are missing their families from their past lives.
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For me, a lot of the humor comes not from innocence but from characters trying to figure out how to get what they need. I don’t try to be funny, but am relieved when an opportunity comes up for humor.
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While a dramatized scene is a way of proving and guaranteeing an emotional experience for the reader, exposition assumes that the reader is sophisticated and can see the universal.
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I realized that he was writing about good people doing good things. This did not match my experience of life and so I found my sentences stretching and becoming less plain.
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Even within my stories, people hold opposing views.
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I can’t have composite characters. I can’t attribute dialogue to someone based simply on my memory and not based on notes taken at the time that the words were spoken.
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To me exposition always contains tenderness.
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The monsoon is such a dominant part of Indian life that it is hard to overstate its importance.
AKHIL SHARMA






