Best 30 quotes of Tom Rachman on MyQuotes

A common defense among obituary-fanciers such as myself is that the obit is not about death at all. It is about life. This is true since an article about the condition of deadness would make for turgid reading at best.

Art doesn't spring from the muses alone, but from hard work.

Basically, financial reporting is this sinking hole at the centre of journalism. You start by swimming around it until finally, reluctantly, you can't fight the pull anymore and you get sucked down the drain into the biz pages.

During my past career as a journalist, I relished writing obits and equally dreaded phoning relatives for the necessary facts. But to my surprise and great relief, they often wanted to talk - they wanted their recently deceased loved ones recorded in print.

Here is a fact: nothing in all civilization has been as productive as ludicrous ambition. Whatever its ills, nothing has created more. Cathedrals, sonatas, encyclopedias: love of God was not behind them, nor love of life. But the love of man to be worshiped by man.

Journalists who are devoted to strictly factual reporting take particular pleasure from satirical news outlets that have the liberty to laugh and even mock the hypocrisy that reporters and editors must simply observe without comment.

Many things embarrass me, but reading isnt one of them. Im not ashamed of my slightly weird collection of prison memoirs. Nor the flaky meditation books. After all, I can pretend I never read those.

Our worst fear isn't the end of life but the end of memories.

People, it turns out, aren't a product of their own time. They're a product of the time before theirs

Remembering is the most overrated thing. Forgetting is far superior.

The training of a journalist, of working with words for thousands of hours, is extraordinarily useful for a fiction writer.

We enjoy this illusion of continuity and we call it memory. Which explains, perhaps, why our worst fear isn't the end of life, but the end of memories

You know, there's that silly saying 'We're born alone and we die alone' -it's nonsense. We're surrounded at birth and surrounded at death. It is in between that we're alone.

As touchy as cabaret performers and as stubborn as factory machinists....

But my point, you see is that death is misunderstood. The loss of one's life is not the greatest loss. It is no loss at all. To others, perhaps, but not to oneself.

Did she answer my email yet?' That's the new obesity.

Don’t you find it striking? The personality is constantly dying and it feels like continuity. Meanwhile, we panic about death, which we cannot ever experience. Yet it is this illogical fear that motivates our lives. We gore each other and mutilate ourselves for victory and fame, as if these might swindle mortality and extend us somehow. Then, as death bears down, we agonize over how little we have achieved.

I have to wonder if you're not being slightly naive here. I mean, are you saying that you want nothing for people? You have no motives? Everybody has motives. Name the person, the circumstances, I'll name the motive. Even saints have motives -- to feel like saints, probably. ... But still, the point of any relationship is obtaining something from another person.

literally: This word should be deleted. All too often, actions described as “literally” did not happen at all. As in, “He literally jumped out of his skin.” No, he did not. Though if he literally had, I’d suggest raising the element and proposing the piece for page one. Inserting “literally” willy-nilly reinforces the notion that breathless nitwits lurk within this newsroom. Eliminate on sight—the usage, not the nitwits. The nitwits are to be captured

Maybe we're all ongoing stories, defined at various stages of life, or whenever people oblige us to declare ourselves. Fiction is marvelous for studying this, allowing the writer and reader to leap decades in a sentence. No other art lets you bend time as much.

Now I help you find her." He stood up from behind the table, smoothed down his tie. "I sit for too long. My leg goes to bed." "To sleep?" "Thank you, small person. At rare time, I am making mistake in English-language speaking, so thanks for accurate fixation. Now we find Sarah. You follow. Stay near. There are trivial beings everywhere.

She has been dreading tomorrow ever since it happened the first time.

The greatest influence over content was necessity--they had holes to fill on every page and jammed in any vaguely newsworthy string of words, provided it didn't include expletives, which they were apparently saving for their own use around the office.

They had holes to fill on every page and jammed in any vaguely newsworthy string of words provided it didn't include expletives, which they were apparently saving for their own use around the office.

Thought you were going to be in touch. Where were you?" "Where? There aren't places anymore, duck," he responded. "No locations now, just individuals. You didn't hear? Everyone's their own nation, with their own blog. Because everybody has something important to say; everybody's putting out press releases on what they ate for breakfast. It's the era of self-importance. Everyone's their own world. Doesn't matter where people are. Or where I was." "Nicely dodged.

What’s there to say about making paintings?” He looks hard at his son. “My real life, it’s when I’m working. It’s entirely there. The rest—everything—is flimflam. And that’s tragedy. Because what am I really doing? Wiping colors across fabric? Tricking people into feeling something’s there, when it’s nothing? When I’m doing the work, I almost think it adds up. Then they drag me to some farce like tonight, and I’m reminded what my job really is: goddamn decoration.

When she realizes that Nigel is having an affair, her first sentiment is satisfaction that she figured it out. Her second is that, despite all the palaver about betrayal, it doesn't feel so terrible.This is pleasing--it demonstrates a certain sophistication. She wonders if his fling might even serve her. In principle, she could leave him without compunction now, though she doesn't wish to. It also frees her from guilt about any infidelities she might wish to engage in. All in all, his affair might prove useful.

...which is where I met my my husband. Not currently my husband. My ex. Though he wasn't that then. I never know how to say that." "Allow my copydesk expertise to intervene: your then-pre-husband, later-to-be-post-husband in his prior-to-ex-husband status.

Who's Johnnie Walker?" "It's a drink. For grown-ups." "Is it nice?" "Makes you drunk." "What's it like being drunk?" "Like being awake and asleep at the same time." "Sounds nice." "It was meant to sound terrible," he said looking down his glasses at her. "You get sick and stagger around. People actually vomit sometimes.

Will you have kids?" "You make such an attractive case for the reproductive plunge. I don't know, Duncan. Childhood is so exhausting." "As a parent?" "I mean as the child. Not sure it's fair to drop somebody else into life without giving them a choice in the matter." "You'll find it's kind of tough to canvass the opinion of sperm." "I prefer asking the eggs—they're more articulate. Anyway, aren't you the guy who's always bemoaning the future of humanity? Saying how the worst jerks always have millions of babies, meaning the world gets worse every generation?" "Exactly why decent people need to have kids.