Top Aleksandar Hemon Quotes

Aleksandar Hemon Biography

Aleksandar Hemon (born September 9, 1964) is a Bosnian fiction writer, essayist, and critic. His best known novels are Nowhere Man (2002) and The Lazarus Project (2008).

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Aleksandar Hemon Quotes

Every writer owes something to a particular tradition he
she grew up in. But no serious writer - other than the militantly nationalist ones - would reduce his
her domain of influence to a single tradition. Furthermore, historical breaks are so common and large in Europe that there are ruptures in every tradition which then connect the same generations across national borders. Younger Eastern European writers, for instance, have more in common with other writers of the same age in Europe, than with the previous, communist-era generations in their own countries.

Age, Country, Historical, Owes, Reduce, Tradition

Despite all that I know rationally, and everything that I can put into words, I can say that I have difficulty giving up the notion of the nobility of art.

Art, Giving Up, Difficulty, Rationally, Say

Belief and delusion are incestuous siblings.

Belief, Delusion, Incestuous, Sibling, Siblings

Cliché activates the comfortable mental laziness, we sort of revert to the domain of the already-familiar, what we have already imagined so that it doesn't seem that bad.

Laziness, Domain, Familiar, Imagined, Comfortable

Wherever there's capitalism there's this inclination toward simplicity. There's also a human need to process complicated things by turning them into something else.

Simplicity, Needs, Complicated, Toward, Inclination, Capitalism

I'm not nervous if I think about something for nine years and then I don't write it. Even if it fades it doesn't concern me. It'll come back if it's worth it.

Back, Come, Think, Thinking, Writing, Years

Washington D. C. ! Congress is full of self-declared outsiders.

Congress, Full, Outsiders, Self, Washington

Your nightmares follow you like a shadow, forever.

Forever, Shadow, Nightmare, Nightmares, Follow, Like

There are many things I think about that never get to the point of becoming serious. In other words, I try to talk myself out of writing, sometimes for many years, and when I run out of arguments, I write.

Running, Writing, Thinking, Becoming, Years, Run

I'm bright, but there are lots of bright writers and people everywhere. In no way, at no point do I think I'm better than them.

Thinking, People, Way, Point, Lots

I've never had a stupid student in my life. I never look down on my students. I never thought, "Look at these people. " I might argue with them and I think that some of them might have misconceptions - that they might be infected by the intellectual laziness that is the foundation of American popular culture, and of capitalism, if you wish. But part of my job as a teacher is to work with that - against that.

American, Jobs, Part, Stupid, Teacher, Wish

A particular piece of music attaches itself to the piece I'm writing, and there is nothing else I can listen to. Every day I return to the same space to write, the music providing both the walls and the pictures on the walls.

Day, Piece, Return, Space, Wall, Writing

I cannot stand that whole game of confession, that is: Here I have sinned, now I'm confessing my sins, and describing my path of sin and then in the act of confession I beg for your forgiveness and redemption.

Describing, Games, Path, Redemption, Sins, Whole

In the olden days, a memoir was something written by Churchill and people like that, because they had a grand experience and considered it useful for future generations. And then it became what it became - a public purging in which other people have the chance to judge you and then forgive you, perhaps learning something from your sorry example.

Experience, Grand, Judge, Judging, People, Sorry

I gradually became aware that my interiority was inseparable from my exteriority, that the geography of my city was the geography of my soul.

Cities, City, Geography, Inseparable, Soul

New York is the Hollywood of the publishing industry, complete with stars, starlets, suicidal publishers
producers, intrigues, and a lot of money.

New York, Stars, Suicidal, Money, Industry, Intrigues

I never thought of myself as an outsider. Because outside of what? You would have to give advantage to this space where you're not, to think of it as sovereign because you're not there. I was always in the center of where I needed to be.

Center, Giving, Outsider, Space, Thinking

It is so much easier to deal with the dead than with the living. The dead are out of the way, merely characters from stories about the past, never again unreadable, no misunderstandings possible, the pain coming from them stable and manageable. nor do you have to explain yourself to them, to justify the fact of your life.

Character, Explain, Life, Pain, Past, Unreadable

People will always tell stories. The publishing industry might vanish, but not stories.

People, Stories, Might, Tell, Industry, Vanish

When I came to America, I was already a writer, already published in Bosnia. I was planning to go back, but I had no choice but to stay here after the civil war, so I enrolled at Northwestern in a master's program and studied American literature.

Already, America, Choices, War

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Aleksandar Hemon Biography

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