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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.

Akhil Sharma

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
My parents are deeply pious Hindus.
AKHIL SHARMA

Deeply Hindus Parent Pious
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 SHARMA

Away Cry Everything Forget Loose Lost Memory Slide Tear
For me, a memoir is nonfiction and nonfiction has to be absolutely true.
AKHIL SHARMA

Absolute True
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.
AKHIL SHARMA

Character Come Figure Humor Innocence Opportunity Trying
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.
AKHIL SHARMA

Authority Book Fact Fiction Novel Real Something True World Writing
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
If anybody reads an Indian newspaper, all these things are obvious, and so I am not breaking news. All I am doing is representing my community as it actually is.
AKHIL SHARMA

Abortion Breaking Community News Newspaper Obvious People Read
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.
AKHIL SHARMA

Able Child Children Create Enough First Information Legible Narrator
Even within my stories, people hold opposing views.
AKHIL SHARMA

Hold Oppose People Story View
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
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.
AKHIL SHARMA

Describe Need Often People Quick Shorthand Thinking Use
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
Ernest Hemingway has been the most important influence on me as a writer. But at a certain point as a writer,
AKHIL SHARMA

Doing Good Important Influence People Realize Thing Writer Writing
The little babies are missing their families from their past lives.
AKHIL SHARMA

Baby Family Life Memories Missing Past
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.
AKHIL SHARMA

Assume Community Female Many Person Reader Same Sophisticated

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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I tend to think that we are all pretty much alike. We all feel despair. We all have problems with relationships.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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