The love I felt for her on that train ride had a capital and provinces, parishes and a Vatican, an orange planet and many sullen moons -- it was systemic and it was complete.
Gary ShteyngartRead
That's what tyrants do, I guess. They make you covet their attention; they make you confuse attention for mercy.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that tyrants manipulate people's desire for their attention, leading them to mistake it for kindness or compassion.
In this quote, Gary Shteyngart reflects on the nature of tyrants and how they wield power over others. He points out that tyrants create a dynamic where their subjects crave attention, which is often misinterpreted as benevolence. This underscores a deeper commentary on the relationship between power and perception, illustrating how twisted motivations can distort reality and morality.
Themes
TyrantAttentionMercyPowerManipulation
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on political power dynamics, one might use this quote to illustrate the psychology of oppression.
More from Gary Shteyngart
All quotes βMy hair would continue to gray, and then one day, it would fall out entirely, and then, on a day meaninglessly close to the present one, meaninglessly like the present one, I would disappear from the earth. And all these emotions, all these yearnings, all these data, if that helps to clinch the enormity of what I'm talking about, would be gone. And that's what immortality means. It means selfishness. My generations belief that each one of us matters more than you or anyone else would think.
Gary ShteyngartRead
In contravention of my belief that any life ending in death is essentially pointless, I needed my friends to open up that plastic bag and take one last look at me. Someone had to remember me, if only for a few more minutes in the vast silent waiting room of time.
Gary ShteyngartRead
When civilization takes a nose dive, how can you look away? You've got to be there. You've got to be at the bottom of the swimming pool taking notes.
Gary ShteyngartRead
Every returning New Yorker asks the question: Is this still my city? I have a ready answer, cloaked in obstinate despair: It is. And if it's not, I will love it all the more. I will love it to the point where it becomes mine again.
Gary ShteyngartRead
Then I celebrated my Wall of Books. I counted the volumes on my twenty-foot-long modernist bookshelf to make sure none had been misplaced or used as kindling by my subtenant. βYouβre my sacred ones,β I told the books. βNo one but me still cares about you. But Iβm going to keep you with me forever. And one day Iβll make you important again.β I thought about that terrible calumny of the new generation: that books smell.
Gary ShteyngartRead
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I think that if there are positions that you can't argue... then the responsibility is probably to resign. If one's own conscience is opposed to the requirements and responsibilities of the job, then it's time to leave the job.
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The future remains uncertain and so it should, for it is the canvas upon which we paint our desires. Thus always the human condition faces a beautifully empty canvas. We possess only this moment in which to dedicate ourselves continuously to the sacred presence which we share and create.
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