My mother was born in Latvia. She and most of her family fled from the capital city of Riga in 1944 with the final approach of the Soviet army. Amity Gaige Read Quote
In the name of ‘mutual assistance,’ the Soviet Union would occupy Latvia until 1991, and it continues to occupy Latvia: in the obedient, epic lines at the post office, in the fug of coal smoke outside cities, in the notorious apartment buildings made of bricks of radioactive compressed ash. Amity Gaige Read Quote
I often heard Latvians compare Russia and America. Latvians find both countries and their leaders possessed of the same mysterious confidence. Amity Gaige Read Quote
I certainly want people to like my writing, but I know that if I write with the intention of trying to please people, the writing will not be good because it will not be authentic. So, ironically, I have to be willing to write something strange or unlovable in order to write anything truly good. Amity Gaige Read Quote
I think novels are profoundly autobiographical. If writers deny that, they are lying. Or if it’s really true, then I think it’s a mistake. Amity Gaige Read Quote
I think I have a very American desire and willingness to divulge everything. I would divulge more if I didn’t know it wasn’t smart. Amity Gaige Read Quote
Nobody writes like Nabokov; nobody ever will. What I would give to write one sentence like Vladimir! Amity Gaige Read Quote
For several years before I began ‘The Folded World,’ I worked at an urban college campus and had a job in a tutoring center, and people would come into the tutoring center, and for some reason, they just kept telling me their life stories. Amity Gaige Read Quote
