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 SHARMAIt 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.
More Akhil Sharma Quotes
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When someone gets a success, and we, too, have done good work and sometimes even better work than the person who has just triumphed, we wonder: Why did success pass me by?
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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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The little babies are missing their families from their past lives.
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The babies have old souls and the old souls have to shrink to become little babies.
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The monsoon is such a dominant part of Indian life that it is hard to overstate its importance.
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Novels should be judged rigorously. Either a book works or it doesn’t. The fact that something is true in the real world should not lend authority to it in fiction.
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It is hard to write about physically difficult things without causing the reader to disengage.
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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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Money is part of how we move through the world, what stores and restaurants we go into, whether we take a train to the airport or a taxi. Describing characters living in the real world requires describing them engaging with money.
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For me, a memoir is nonfiction and nonfiction has to be absolutely true.
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People 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.
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Sandeep Jauhar gives us an insider’s look at the medical profession and also a dramatic account of the psychological challenges of early adulthood.
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I can guide them to books that will serve as role models. Largely, though, one learns to write almost like developing muscle memory, and this requires years of effort.
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Ernest Hemingway has been the most important influence on me as a writer. But at a certain point as a writer,
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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.
AKHIL SHARMA






