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Russell Banks Biography

Russell Banks (born March 28, 1940) is an American writer of fiction and poetry. As a novelist, Banks is best known for his "detailed accounts of domestic strife and the daily struggles of ordinary often-marginalized characters". His stories usually revolve around his own childhood experiences, and often reflect "moral themes and personal relationships".

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Russell Banks Quotes

Chimpanzees are endangered. Severely.

Chimpanzees, Endangered, Severely

First of all it's usually women who run these higher primate sanctuaries, rarely men. They are white. They come from privileged backgrounds. They are educated.

Backgrounds, Men, Primate, Privileged, Running, White

Our sins describe us, and our prohibitions describe our sins.

Describe, Prohibition, Prohibitions, Sin, Sins

The 60s passed and faded and I grew older, and in 1987 bought a house in upstate New York, and it turned out that John Brown was buried down the road from my house and that he had lived there longer than anywhere else and his house was still standing.

1987, Buried, House, John Brown, Lived, New York

But on the other hand, I don't actively seek out stories or hunt them down.

Actively, Down, Hands, Hunting, Stories

The issue of torture, connected to American soldiers, is not somewhere most people want to linger. We may not want to confront this issue so much in the U. S. because of how we want to think about our veterans. There's the sense that we want to think of our veterans as - if they're damaged, damaged by something glamorous, like a firefight.

Issues, Our Veterans, Sense, Think, Thinking, Torture

Motivations are too tangled and complex.

Complex, Complexes, Motivation, Motivations, Tangled

Much more than memoir; it's history.

History, Memoir

It was strange to stand there in front of the mirror and see myself like I was my own best friend, a kid wanted to hang with forever. This was a boy I could travel to the seacoasts with, a boy I'd like to meet up with in foreign cities like Calcutta and London and Brazil, a boy I could trust who also had a good sense of humor and liked smoked oysters from a can and good weed and the occasional 40 ounces of malt. If I was going to be alone for the rest of my life this was the person I wanted to be alone with.

Boys, Good, Kid, Kids, Life, Weed

And out of a desire essentially to imitate what I was reading, I began to write, like a clever monkey.

Clever, Monkey, Reading, Write, Writing

I am aware of the changes, but in no sense am I believer that we live in a post-racial society. That's a description of our inheritance and that is theirs, which is inescapable. It is doesn't matter if you are from New England or Mississippi. You're an American. It doesn't matter if you are white, black, brown, or Asian. It is part of American society. You'd have to be blind, deaf, or dumb not to know it. The emphasis on color or the fear of it, is all part of the same dark flower. I am trying to point to that and to bring it all the way back from Senegal.

Changes, Dark, Dumb, England, Flower, Society

What I am finding now is that my audience is getting younger as I get older, which is a very good thing as you know - you don't want them to get older as you get older.

Good, Good Things, Older, Very Good, Want, Younger

They were gone and I missed them but even so I was very happy. For the rest of my life no matter where on this planet earth I went and no matter how scared or confused I got, I could wait until dark and look up into the night sky and see my three friends again and my heart would swell with love of them and make me strong and clearheaded.

Confused, Heart, Strong, Swell, Three

The way I feel about every book is this: you don't finish it, you abandon it. All of my books have in some sense failed, otherwise I wouldn't write another one. If I wrote the perfect book, I wouldn't have to write again, and I wouldn't want to. That's not true for everyone, but it's true for me. I could walk away then. But so far I haven't managed to do it.

Book, Perfect, Way, Write, Writing

If you dedicate your attention to discipline in your life you become smarter while you are writing than while you are hanging out with your pals or in any other line of work.

Attention, Become, Discipline, Line, Writing

My major allegiance has been to storytelling, not to history.

Allegiance, Has Beens, History, Storytelling

Storytelling is an ancient and honorable act. An essential role to play in the community or tribe. It's one that I embrace wholeheartedly and have been fortunate enough to be rewarded for.

Community, Embrace, Essentials, Play, Rewarded, Tribe

When an old man and a young man work together, it can make an ugly sight or a pretty one, depending on who's in charge. If the young man's in charge or won't let the old man take over, the young man's brute strength becomes destructive and inefficient, and the old man's intelligence, out of frustration, grows cruel and inefficient. Sometimes the old man forgets that he is old and tries to compete with the young man's strength, and then it's a sad sight. Or the young man forgets that he is young and argues with the old man about how to do the work, and that's a sad sight, too.

Becomes, Frustration, Man, Men, Sight, Together

Let the truth take care of itself, I decided. It's done all right on its own so far.

Care, Decided, Done, Right, Take Care

One of the things I have tried to do with this book and with all of them really is avoid that simple, easy, reductionist view of motivation and to show we do things for a complex net of reasons, a real braid of reasons.

Book, Braid, Motivation, Real, Things, Tried

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