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Jess Row Quotes

Short story writer

Jess Row, born on October 25, 1974, is an American short story writer known for his unique perspective and profound insights into the complexities of modern urban life.

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Famous Jess Row Quotes

“That became my aesthetic - a very Chekhovian, American realist aesthetic in the tradition of Raymond Carver, Richard Ford, and Tobias Wolff. The perfectible, realist story that had these somewhat articulate characters, a lot of silence, a lot of obscured suffering, a lot of manliness, a lot of drinking, a lot of divorces. As my writing went on, I shed a lot of those elements.”

Writing Character Stories Suffering Silence Elements Tradition Drinking Divorce Aesthetic Shed Realist Tobias Manliness Carver

Author:Jess Row

“It was always a false assumption that white American writers cannot write novels about race unless they're approaching it from a very oblique angle.”

Writing White Race Novel Assumption Angle American Writer False Assumptions

Author:Jess Row

“Black culture is very difficult to explain to people who don't have any direct contact with it.”

People Culture Difficult Black Direct Contact Black Culture

Author:Jess Row

“Only when you leave do you appreciate what binds American people and our cultural experience together.”

People Together Appreciate

Author:Jess Row

“The impact of black music and black art forms on American culture is really difficult to appreciate.”

Art Form Culture Difficult Black Appreciate Impact American Culture Black Music Black Art

Author:Jess Row

“It's only when an American steps outside of their own culture that you see how integral it is.”

Author:Jess Row

“Most Americans have a sense of what the blues is. But in Hong Kong, they have no sense of the blues.”

Author:Jess Row

“I never really had novel-writing instruction like people do in MFA programs.”

People Writing Novel Program Instruction Novel Writing

Author:Jess Row

“I had a lot of expectations placed on me because I was already having some success with my short stories. That was not a good situation to be in. That by itself took a long time to overcome.”

Long Stories Situation Long Time Expectations Overcoming Short Story

Author:Jess Row

“Not unlike gender reassignment surgery, someone determines that they are of a different race on the inside and they wish to surgically correct that.”

Different Wish Race Determine Gender Surgery Different Races

Author:Jess Row

“My parents didn't really restrict my movement, so I got involved in the underground music scene and the activism scene; I was doing some volunteering in food relief. I spent a lot of time throughout the city in poor areas, even though my family lived in a wealthy area.”

Parent Poor Cities Movement Involved Scene Areas My Family Activism Relief Wealthy Volunteer Underground Music

Author:Jess Row

“I was relatively isolated from people of color. My parents are too old to be Baby Boomers; they had me later in life. So we didn't listen to any black music at all in the house, not even Ben E. King.”

People House Parent Black Color Baby Kings Isolated Later In Life Boomers Baby Boomer Black Music

Author:Jess Row

“I was raised with opera and very white-bread folk music like The Kingston Trio. That was about as daring as it got. So when I discovered hip-hop as a teenager, at first it made no sense to me at all.”

Firsts Made White Raised Folks Hip Hop Bread Hips Teenager Hops Opera Daring Folk Music Trios White Bread

Author:Jess Row

“The hip-hop that I really connected with was Public Enemy, KRS-One, Ice Cube, and N.W.A. That late '80s and early '90s era. The beginning of gangster rap and the beginning of politically conscious rap. I had a very immature, adolescent feeling of, "Wow, I can really connect with these people through the stories they're telling in this music."”

People I Can Stories Feelings Enemy Late Conscious Hip Hop Connected Rap Ice Hips Eras Hops Wow 80s Gangsters Immature Cubes Public Enemies Conscious Rap Gangster Rap Krs One

Author:Jess Row

“Hip-hop is mostly what I listen to, other than jazz. I've given up on pop music and indie rock.”

Given Rocks Jazz Hip Hop Pops Hips Hops Given Up Pop Music Indie Rock

Author:Jess Row

“The gestures and the swagger and the attitude of black men is imitated everywhere in American culture, but people still find black men intolerable.”

People Men Stills Culture Black Attitude Gestures American Culture Swagger

Author:Jess Row

“Because of all the cosmetic services like skin whitening and hair bleaching, there is a lot that people can do to change their appearance without having actual surgery. It's quite common in Thailand and Korea and Japan.”

People Can Do Common Hair Skins Appearance Japan Surgery Korea Cosmetics Thailand Bleaching Whitening

Author:Jess Row

“There's an enormous difference between normative white masculinity and normative black masculinity.”

Black Differences White Enormous Masculinity

Author:Jess Row

“There's been a lot of talk about black men and the presence and absence of black men in positions of power in American culture.”

Men Culture Black Position Absence American Culture Position Of Power

Author:Jess Row

“You think about every piece of idiomatic speech adopted by white men over the past ten or twenty years; virtually all of it comes from hip-hop.”

Thinking Men Years Past White Pieces Ten Speech Twenties Hip Hop Hips Hops White Man Adopted Over The Past

Author:Jess Row

“There is something very quiet and reserved and pessimistic about Obama's temperament that is deeply un-American. There are those people who claim, "Oh, he wasn't born here" - all that is nonsense.”

People Born Quiet Claims Nonsense Temperament Reserved Pessimistic

Author:Jess Row

“The politics of transgender identity are really complicated. And the debate over how much of gender is biological and how much of it is socially constructed is a very complex debate.”

Identity Complexes Complicated Gender Debate Transgender

Author:Jess Row

“I had observed people whose identity crises around race seemed analogous to other people's identity crises around gender.”

People Race Identity Crisis Gender Identity Crisis

Author:Jess Row

“For me, there's a very clear parallel between the practice of insight in Buddhism and what's called prajna - the insight that arrives through meditation.”

Practice Clear Meditation Buddhism Insight Parallels

Author:Jess Row

“Prajna is insight into the world. And a lot of that insight has to do with karma and the way karma affects our lives.”

World Way Our Lives Insight Karma

Author:Jess Row

“Narrative stories are nothing but models of karma and causality - how one thing leads to another. And a lot of narrative fiction is about causality that we don't immediately understand.”

Stories Fiction One Thing Models Karma Narrative Causality

Author:Jess Row

“Hong Kong has been the place where the memory of Tiananmen Square lives on; Hong Kong people have become more and more committed in their resistance to authoritarian government, and also, not surprisingly, committed to safeguarding their culture and heritage as something distinct and worth preserving.”

People Has Beens Government Culture Memories Committed Resistance Squares Heritage Hong Kong Safeguarding Authoritarian Government Tiananmen Square

Author:Jess Row

“Yale's endowment became a metaphor for the kind of training it offered its graduates, namely, how to exploit the global marketplace, and technology, for your own interests, while maintaining a smokescreen of virtuous intent.”

Kind Interest Technology Training Metaphor Graduates Virtuous Endowment

Author:Jess Row

“I've spent my entire adult life teaching at colleges of various kinds, all of them very different from Yale, and I have a fairly cynical perspective on what elite institutions - and the privileges they embody - represent in America.”

Kind Different Teaching College Perspective Various Cynical

Author:Jess Row

“The truth is that an intellectual life is available to almost anyone, almost anywhere, if they work hard enough and are given some kind of access point.”

Kind Enough Hard Work Truth Is Intellectual

Author:Jess Row

About the Author

Born: October 25, 1974
Known for: Short story writer
Quotes: 30

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