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It’s easy when you grow up in fear to act out of fear. I don’t want to embrace that fear; I prefer to be kind.

Akhil Sharma

It’s easy when you grow up in fear to act out of fear. I don’t want to embrace that fear; I prefer to be kind.
AKHIL SHARMA

Act Be Kind Fear Grow Up Out Want
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?
AKHIL SHARMA

Better Done Good Person Sometimes Success Wonder Work
As a teacher, I can help my students see what is working and not working. I can show them certain solutions.
AKHIL SHARMA

Book Help Memories Student Teacher Working
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.
AKHIL SHARMA

Character Info Money Moving Part Real Restaurant World
Exposition suggests a great trust in the reader, and this expression of trust makes a book feel tender.
AKHIL SHARMA

Book Exposition Expression Feel Reader Suggest Tender Trust
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.
AKHIL SHARMA

Experience Good Less People Plain Realized Sentence Stretch Thing
I need to tell the things that are important but which don’t make sense in terms of the narrative, things that would destroy symmetry or narrative pace. This is my personal belief about what it means to write nonfiction.
AKHIL SHARMA

Important Mean Narrative Need Sense Thing Writing
For me, a memoir is nonfiction and nonfiction has to be absolutely true.
AKHIL SHARMA

Absolute True
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.
AKHIL SHARMA

Attribute Based Character Composite Dialogue Memories Note Simply Spoken Taken Word
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.
AKHIL SHARMA

Book Develop Effect Guide Large Memory Model Muscle Require Role
There are also so many emotional aspects to money – feelings of inadequacy, feelings of security. I am not sure if there needs to be more about money in fiction, but the absence of this aspect can make a story feel somehow frictionless and unreal.
AKHIL SHARMA

Aspect Emotional Feeling Fiction How Inadequacy Money Security Unreal
Seven years into writing a novel, I started to lose my mind.
AKHIL SHARMA

Lose Mind Novel Seven Started Writing Year
I tend to think that we are all pretty much alike. We all feel despair. We all have problems with relationships.
AKHIL SHARMA

Alike Much People Pretty Thinking Unique
The monsoon is such a dominant part of Indian life that it is hard to overstate its importance.
AKHIL SHARMA

Country Different Dominant Importance Indian Life Monsoon Rain Such
One’s life completely changes based on the rain. After the monsoon, because the dust settles, one can see further and so it feels like one’s eyesight has improved or that one is living in a different country where there is more light.
AKHIL SHARMA

Change Completely Country Difficult Dust Feel Light Monsoon More Rain Settle
The babies have old souls and the old souls have to shrink to become little babies.
AKHIL SHARMA

Baby Become Little Old Soul Shrink

It’s easy when you grow up in fear to act out of fear. I don’t want to embrace that fear; I prefer to be kind.

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It’s easy when you grow up in fear to act out of fear. I don’t want to embrace that fear; I prefer to be kind.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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