Téa Obreht Quotes

I grew up in Cyprus and Egypt, these fantastic places I remember fondly.

I do no writing while I'm in Belgrade visiting my grandma.

For me it was a lot harder to come to terms with the death of my grandfather than it was to come to terms with what's happened to the former Yugoslavia.

The best fiction stays with you and changes you.

In my earliest memory, my grandfather is bald as a stone and he takes me to see the tigers.

My grandfather and I were very close.

No matter how grave the secret, how imperative absolute silence, someone would always feel the urge to confess, and an unleashed secret is a terrible force.

In the end, all you want is someone to long for you when it comes time to put you in the ground.

A family has its own rituals and its own superstitions.

I am very interested in place, and the influences of place on characters.

I've always written about animals. I'm still trying to process why that is.

The dead are celebrated. The dead are loved. They give something to the living. Once you put something into the ground, Doctor, you always know where to find it.

A lot of writers that I know have told me that the first book you write, you write about your childhood, whether you want to or not. It calls you back.

In terms of people that I know, my grandmother and my mother are huge influences on my writing life because they are both massively supportive and always have been of my career.

When you're in a place, the details you focus on are different than details you focus on when you're writing about it.

My road to publishing actually came through a colleague who connected me to my agent, and the faculty at Cornell was very supportive.

My family lived in Egypt from 1993 to 1996.

In the mess of moving from place to place, I skipped two grades in the space of one year.

death should be celebrated...when you put something in the ground you always know where it is

You never know what's going to happen in your life, and you never know what's going to happen in someone else's life either.

What inspires me most to write is the act of traveling.

Wash the bones, bring the body, leave the heart behind.

At the end of the day, it's about the reader's attachment to and belief in the magical elements that make or break magical realism.

I like dark subject matter. I'm not sure what that means about me!

I think the mythology of death really ran away with me when I was very young.

My mother always says that fear and pain are immediate, and that, when they're gone we're left with the concept, but not the true memory.

We're all entitled to our superstitions.

Come on, is your heart a sponge or a fist?

It's a sad thing to see, because as far as I know, this man Gavo had done nothing to deserve being shot in the back of the head at his own funeral. Twice.

...fear and pain are immediate, and that, when they're gone, we're left with the concept, but not the true memory--why else...would anyone give birth more than once?

The forty days of the soul begin on the morning after death.

Grandfather recently died. He died alone on a trip away from home in a town where no one expected him to be

Believe me, Doctor, if your life ends in suddenness you will be glad it did, and if it does not you will wish it had. You will want suddenness, Doctor.