Tom Rachman Quotes & Sayings
Enjoy the top 96 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Tom Rachman.
Famous Quotes By Tom Rachman
When, she wonders, do people have time to contemplate anything? But she has no time to answer that. — Tom Rachman
I say that ambition is absurd, and yet I remain in its thrall. It's like being a slave all your life, then learning one day that you never had a master, and returning to work all the same. — Tom Rachman
People, it turns out, aren't a product of their own time. They're a product of the time before theirs — Tom Rachman
He glances at the sorry trio of copy editors before him: Dave Belling, a simpleton far too cheerful to compose a decent headline; Ed Rance, who wears a white ponytail
what more need one say?; and Ruby Zaga, who is sure that the entire staff is plotting against her, and is correct. What is the value in remonstrating with such a feckless triumvirate? — Tom Rachman
Fogg's most salient quality as an employee was his ability to be present while she fetched a sandwich. Beyond this, he contributed little that could be quantified. — Tom Rachman
Veto is like if you make big sandwich - careful and nice you make it - and I come over and eat sandwich. No question asked. This is how veto works. — Tom Rachman
Venn was like a devilish older sibling, offering that brotherly combination of wholly unreliable and utterly trustworthy. — Tom Rachman
Books increase by rule of compound interest: one interest leads to another interest, and this compounds into third. — Tom Rachman
My parents used to rent old movies - my whole childhood is in black and white - and it was my dream to make films. — Tom Rachman
I had pictured journalism as I'd seen it in the most ennobling films, where the reporter battles for the truth, propelled by conviction, and is triumphant. There are journalists who fit that ideal. — Tom Rachman
There's a line from Heraclitus: No man steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man. — Tom Rachman
What strikes me," Sarah continued, "is that men are such savages - they don't fold their clothes, they pee on the toilet seat, they barely wash - yet when it comes to their views on women they're suddenly so concerned about how everything looks. Each barbarian becomes an aesthete about the female body, all of a sudden expecting perfection. — Tom Rachman
I don't like most contemporary art. But I think if you talked to any person who's heavily involved in contemporary art, they'd say the same thing. If you go to a biennale, you don't expect to like much of it. — Tom Rachman
My own career started in New York at the 'Associated Press', a fast-paced news agency where we rarely had time for deep reporting. — Tom Rachman
Nothing, not even dictionaries, can tell you what anything means," he said. "The reality of things is just sad, for the most part. — Tom Rachman
During my past career as a journalist, I relished writing obits and equally dreaded phoning relatives for the necessary facts. But to my surprise and great relief, they often wanted to talk - they wanted their recently deceased loved ones recorded in print. — Tom Rachman
Unlike in books, there was no concluding page on the Internet, just a limitless chain that left her tired, tense, up too late. — Tom Rachman
Books," he said, "are like mushrooms. They grow when you are not looking. Books increase by rule of compound interest: one interest leads to another interest, and this compounds into third. Next, you have so much interest there is no space in closet. — Tom Rachman
The training of a journalist, of working with words for thousands of hours, is extraordinarily useful for a fiction writer. — Tom Rachman
The relationships that counted were those of choice, which made friendship the supreme bond, one that either party could sever, and all the more valuable for its precariousness. — Tom Rachman
They had holes to fill on every page and jammed in any vaguely newsworthy string of words provided it didn't include expletives, which they were apparently saving for their own use around the office. — Tom Rachman
I wanted to show, as Tooly's life enfolds [in The Rise & Fall of Great Powers], how one's earliest stories condition how one encounters the world: what one expects of strangers, whether one counts on justice, whether one veers into cynicism or veers back again. — Tom Rachman
My intent was to gain experience for fiction I eventually hoped to write. But there's no question I was drawn in by the hope that journalism would be a creative, thrilling environment. — Tom Rachman
Don't you find it striking? The personality is constantly dying and it feels like continuity. Meanwhile, we panic about death, which we cannot ever experience. Yet it is this illogical fear that motivates our lives. We gore each other and mutilate ourselves for victory and fame, as if these might swindle mortality and extend us somehow. Then, as death bears down, we agonize over how little we have achieved. — Tom Rachman
But my point, you see is that death is misunderstood. The loss of one's life is not the greatest loss. It is no loss at all. To others, perhaps, but not to oneself. — Tom Rachman
You know, there's that silly saying 'We're born alone and we die alone' -it's nonsense. We're surrounded at birth and surrounded at death. It is in between that we're alone. — Tom Rachman
People kept their books, she thought, not because they were likely to read them again but because these objects contained the past
the texture of being oneself at a particular place, at a particular time, each volume a piece of one's intellect, whether the work itself had been loved or despised or had induced a snooze on page forty. — Tom Rachman
Literally: This word should be deleted. All too often, actions described as "literally" did not happen at all. As in, "He literally jumped out of his skin." No, he did not. Though if he literally had, I'd suggest raising the element and proposing the piece for page one. Inserting "literally" willy-nilly reinforces the notion that breathless nitwits lurk within this newsroom. Eliminate on sight - the usage, not the nitwits. The nitwits are to be captured — Tom Rachman
A common defense among obituary-fanciers such as myself is that the obit is not about death at all. It is about life. This is true since an article about the condition of deadness would make for turgid reading at best. — Tom Rachman
It occurs to me that I've been wrong about something: I always assumed that age and experience weather you, make you more resilient. But that's not true. It's the opposite. — Tom Rachman
The only death we experience is that of other people — Tom Rachman
He cannot deny a certain relief in being able to sift through academic tomes, fulfilling his journalistic duty without having to barge past security guards at the Arab League or grab man-on-the-street from women at the market. This library work is easily his favorite part of reporting so far. — Tom Rachman
Everyone's their own nation, with their own blog. Because everybody has something important to say; everybody's putting out press releases on what they ate for breakfast. It's the era of self-importance. — Tom Rachman
Xavi never did see the end of the Iraq War; he died at the peak of the pandemonium there, though he'd stopped caring, having receded from the world in stages: aware of just the hospice, then just his room, then his bed, then his body, then nothing. — Tom Rachman
You can't dread what you can't experience. The only death we experience is that of other people. That's as bad as it gets. And that's bad enough, surely. — Tom Rachman
Four years ago, he'd nearly married. But his girlfriend went to do theater in London and met a new man there. They'd stayed friends, till she sent photos of her newborn. "When you open the baby-photo email," Fogg said, "it's like your friends waving goodbye. — Tom Rachman
In his pocket, the mobile phone beeped and wriggled. They'd said on the radio that the entirety of human knowledge was available on these handsets, that smartphones had outsmarted their owners. But, for now, he was in control, and the nagging gadget had to wait. He took only a glance at the little screen, enough to see that the text came from Tooly. He pocketed the phone and finished tidying up the Honesty Barrel. Soon he'd read her message and he would know. But not yet. That present had not arrived yet. This one lingered. — Tom Rachman
What's remarkable about fiction is that it places you in the unusual position of having no trajectory. You stand aside, motives abandoned for the duration. The characters have the trajectories now, while you just observe. And this stirs compassion that, in real life, is so often obscured by our own motives. — Tom Rachman
Now I help you find her." He stood up from behind the table, smoothed down his tie. "I sit for too long. My leg goes to bed."
"To sleep?"
"Thank you, small person. At rare time, I am making mistake in English-language speaking, so thanks for accurate fixation. Now we find Sarah. You follow. Stay near. There are trivial beings everywhere. — Tom Rachman
Which is where I met my my husband. Not currently my husband. My ex. Though he wasn't that then. I never know how to say that."
"Allow my copydesk expertise to intervene: your then-pre-husband, later-to-be-post-husband in his prior-to-ex-husband status. — Tom Rachman
The way I found time to write 'The Imperfectionists' was that I took work as a copy editor at the 'International Herald Tribune' in Paris, working full-time for approximately six months, then taking my savings from that and writing full-time, then returning after six months, and so on, until the book was done! — Tom Rachman
Looking back, has this journalism experience been a nightmare for you?'
'Not entirely.'
'Did you enjoy any of it?'
'I liked going to the library,' he says. 'I think I prefer books to people
primary sources scare me. — Tom Rachman
Maybe we're all ongoing stories, defined at various stages of life, or whenever people oblige us to declare ourselves. Fiction is marvelous for studying this, allowing the writer and reader to leap decades in a sentence. No other art lets you bend time as much. — Tom Rachman
I went to the University of Toronto to study the history and theory of film, in the back of my mind thinking I'd go to NYU film school and see if I could make a career of it. — Tom Rachman
As for Humphrey, he was never renowned for tidiness. "My nature abhors the vacuum," he said. — Tom Rachman
Who's Johnnie Walker?"
"It's a drink. For grown-ups."
"Is it nice?"
"Makes you drunk."
"What's it like being drunk?"
"Like being awake and asleep at the same time."
"Sounds nice."
"It was meant to sound terrible," he said looking down his glasses at her. "You get sick and stagger around. People actually vomit sometimes. — Tom Rachman
I have to wonder if you're not being slightly naive here. I mean, are you saying that you want nothing for people? You have no motives? Everybody has motives. Name the person, the circumstances, I'll name the motive. Even saints have motives
to feel like saints, probably ... But still, the point of any relationship is obtaining something from another person. — Tom Rachman
She doesn't remember the twentieth century. Isn't that terrifying? — Tom Rachman
Art doesn't spring from the muses alone, but from hard work. — Tom Rachman
News' is often a polite way of saying 'editor's whim. — Tom Rachman
The strength of fiction is not in reading about yourself, but in reading about other people. — Tom Rachman
She has been dreading tomorrow ever since it happened the first time. — Tom Rachman
What I really fear is time. That's the devil: whipping us on when we'd rather loll, so the present sprints by, impossible to grasp, and all is suddenly past, a past that won't hold still, that slides into these inauthentic tales. My past- it doesn't feel real in the slightest. The person who inhabited it is not me. It's as if the present me is constantly dissolving. There's that line from Heraclitus: 'No man steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.' That's quite right. We enjoy this illusion of continuity, and we call it memory. Which explains, perhaps, why our worst fear isn't the end of life but the end of memories. — Tom Rachman
Did she answer my email yet?' That's the new obesity. — Tom Rachman
Here is a fact: nothing in all civilization has been as productive as ludicrous ambition. Whatever its ills, nothing has created more. Cathedrals, sonatas, encyclopedias: love of God was not behind them, nor love of life. But the love of man to be worshiped by man. — Tom Rachman
When she realizes that Nigel is having an affair, her first sentiment is satisfaction that she figured it out. Her second is that, despite all the palaver about betrayal, it doesn't feel so terrible.This is pleasing
it demonstrates a certain sophistication. She wonders if his fling might even serve her. In principle, she could leave him without compunction now, though she doesn't wish to. It also frees her from guilt about any infidelities she might wish to engage in. All in all, his affair might prove useful. — Tom Rachman
The question I ask myself is what would have happened if newspapers hadn't initially given their content away for free on the Internet. It's so hard to get people to pay once they are accustomed to having something for free. — Tom Rachman
At the outset, my notion of being a writer was that you would have moments of inspiration and moments of frustration, when you'd crumple up your pages and toss them away. On one side, the dustbin would fill up, and on the other side, pages would rise into a novel. — Tom Rachman
That's a paradox I've noticed, too: The news business held little romance for me, yet writing about it somehow stirred my affections. — Tom Rachman
He was a man who formed opinions as he spoke them, or perhaps afterward, requiring him to ramble at length to grasp what he believed. — Tom Rachman
As touchy as cabaret performers and as stubborn as factory machinists ... — Tom Rachman
Many things embarrass me, but reading isn't one of them. I'm not ashamed of my slightly weird collection of prison memoirs. Nor the flaky meditation books. After all, I can pretend I never read those. — Tom Rachman
Don't people drown their sorrows in things like scotch? Not strawberry whatever-it's-called. — Tom Rachman
Milton stood among his staff, shaking hands, memorising names. He already knew them in a way - he understood this breed backward and had foreseeen how his speech would be received. Journalists were as touchy as Cabernet performers and as stubborn as factory machinists. He couldn't help smiling. — Tom Rachman
Why had she? That's just how she was. But damn how she was! She didn't accept that how one was is how one must remain. Consistency in character was a form of tragedy. — Tom Rachman
She is a wonderful nerd, and he hopes this won't change. — Tom Rachman
Vodka is like water, but with consequences. — Tom Rachman
Basically, financial reporting is this sinking hole at the centre of journalism. You start by swimming around it until finally, reluctantly, you can't fight the pull anymore and you get sucked down the drain into the biz pages. — Tom Rachman
This is good for my ego after, like, two years of seeing Italian guys in pink sweaters and orange pants and, like, pulling it off. You know what I'm saying? — Tom Rachman
Will you have kids?"
"You make such an attractive case for the reproductive plunge. I don't know, Duncan. Childhood is so exhausting."
"As a parent?"
"I mean as the child. Not sure it's fair to drop somebody else into life without giving them a choice in the matter."
"You'll find it's kind of tough to canvass the opinion of sperm."
"I prefer asking the eggs - they're more articulate. Anyway, aren't you the guy who's always bemoaning the future of humanity? Saying how the worst jerks always have millions of babies, meaning the world gets worse every generation?"
"Exactly why decent people need to have kids. — Tom Rachman
He was right to notice something missing. She had not stated her fundamental view: that, for Duncan, time and place, fortune and misfortune, only had a glancing impact. He was temperamentally condemned to embitterment and would revert to that condition regardless of circumstances, just as lottery winners, after the euphoria, ended up as morose or cheerful as they'd ever been. People did not see the world for what it was but for what they were. — Tom Rachman
What the art world has done, it has been constantly been pushing the boundaries about what art can be. It's like expanding its territory. — Tom Rachman
I hadn't been a particularly precocious reader, but everybody else in my family was. — Tom Rachman
If history has taught us anything, Arthur muses, it is that men with mustaches must never achieve positions of power. — Tom Rachman
I built and I built - heaven knows I have done that well. Those skyscrapers, full of tenants, floor after floor, and not a single room containing you. You asked why I came here to Rome. I never cared about the news. I came to be in the same room as you, even if I had to build that room, fill it with people, with typewriters, the rest. I only hope you understand that the paper was for you. — Tom Rachman
Journalists who are devoted to strictly factual reporting take particular pleasure from satirical news outlets that have the liberty to laugh and even mock the hypocrisy that reporters and editors must simply observe without comment. — Tom Rachman
There are journalists who are drawn to the most extroverted, aggressive jobs because they get an ego high from it. It can be shocking to encounter them and even worse to work with them. — Tom Rachman
In teen years, people yearned to be liked; in their twenties, to be impressive; in their thirties, to be needed — Tom Rachman
You have to understand, Annika, that I have pretty much resigned myself to spinsterhood since, I don't know, since approximately my entire life. But just because I act chirpy about it doesn't mean that I'm chirpy about it. You have Menzies. Me? I dread weekends. How depressing is that? I wish I didn't have vacation time-I have no idea what to do with it. I don't have anyone to go anywhere with. Look at me-I'm practically forty and I still resemble Pippi Longstocking. — Tom Rachman
Thought you were going to be in touch. Where were you?"
"Where? There aren't places anymore, duck," he responded. "No locations now, just individuals. You didn't hear? Everyone's their own nation, with their own blog. Because everybody has something important to say; everybody's putting out press releases on what they ate for breakfast. It's the era of self-importance. Everyone's their own world. Doesn't matter where people are. Or where I was."
"Nicely dodged. — Tom Rachman
When I left Toronto and entered journalism in the late 1990s, I had many notions about the news business, nearly all of them wrong, as it turned out. — Tom Rachman
Good reporting and good behavior are mutually exclusive. — Tom Rachman
Writing (and reading) is a sort of exercise in empathy, I think. In life, when you encounter people, you and they have separate trajectories, each person pushing in a different direction. What's remarkable about fiction is that it places you in the uncommon position of having no trajectory. You stand aside, motives abandoned for the duration. The characters have the trajectories now, while you just observe. And this stirs compassion that, in real life, is so often obscured by our own motives. What — Tom Rachman
But is good to meet fellow intellectual," he continued. "I celebrate occasion with small drink. Unfortunate, I am impossibility to move."
"Why?"
"Because I find myself in sitting position. — Tom Rachman
What is wrong with guys? Half are molting; half are nothing but undergrowth. — Tom Rachman
I'm too romantic for my own good. And okay, you get kicked in the butt sometimes. But, frankly, I'd rather have, you know - actual sentiments. Than. You know? You know what I mean? — Tom Rachman
Remembering is the most overrated thing. Forgetting is far superior. — Tom Rachman
She hasn't known many Southerners. That twang and aw-shucks about him
it's sort of exotic. — Tom Rachman
The purpose of clothing, as best he could tell, was to keep one unembarrassed and at the right temperature. If an outfit served that purpose for a respectable period - twenty years, say - and at the lowest price available, then it was successful. — Tom Rachman
Anything that's worth anything is complicated. — Tom Rachman
Journalism is a bunch of dorks pretending to be alpha males. — Tom Rachman
Obituaries were among my favorite to write because they have elements no other news stories have - a story from start to finish with a proper conclusion. — Tom Rachman
The Internet is to news," he said, "what car horns are to music. — Tom Rachman