Richard Russo (born July 15, 1949) is an American novelist, short story writer, screenwriter, and teacher. Read full biography of Richard Russo →
I don't think America has ever had a center the way London is the center of England or Dublin is the center of Ireland.
I'm delighted by how Nobody's Fool turned out. It was a rare movie.
I can be glib and truthful all at once.
I get and read an enormous number of first novels.
I read pretty voraciously. If it's good, I don't care what it is.
I think it would be harder for me not to write comedy because the comic view of things is the one that comes most naturally to me.
I think the darker aspect of my fiction-or anybody's fiction-is by its very nature somehow easier to talk about.
I've never written nearly as much about place as people seem to think I do. I just write about class.
If there's an enduring theme in my work, it's probably the effects of class on American life.
If you work at comedy too laboriously, you can kill what's funny in the joke.
It's no secret that in my books I'm trying to make the comic and the serious rub up against each other just as closely and uncomfortably as I... →
What comes easiest for me is dialogue. Sometimes when my characters are speaking to me, I have to slow them down so that I'm not simply taking... →
People often ask me how I make things funny. I don't make things funny.