Andrew Sean Greer Quotes

Powerful Andrew Sean Greer for Daily Growth

About Andrew Sean Greer

Andrew Sean Greer is an esteemed American novelist, essayist, and playwright who was born on March 13, 1971, in Tuscon, Arizona. He was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he developed a passion for literature and the arts at a young age. Greer attended Amherst College, where he earned his Bachelor's degree in English Literature. His academic career continued at Stanford University, where he received a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. Influenced by authors such as Evelyn Waugh, Jane Austen, and Marcel Proust, Greer's works often explore themes of love, relationships, identity, and the absurdities of modern life. His breakthrough novel, "The Confessions of Max Tivoli" (2004), tells the story of a man who ages backward, offering a poignant exploration of life, time, and mortality. Greer's most celebrated work is "Less" (2017), a humorous, heartwarming novel about a struggling writer named Arthur Less who embarks on a global journey to avoid attending a wedding. The book won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2018, making Greer the first American gay man to win this prestigious award. In addition to his novels and plays, Greer has contributed essays and reviews to various publications, including The New York Times, The Guardian, and Vogue. He currently resides in San Francisco with his partner, the writer John Francis Simon, and continues to write and publish critically acclaimed works.

Interpretations of Popular Quotes

"Life is short and then you're dead. Art is long and eternal."

This quote suggests that life is temporary, finite, and transient in contrast to art which can endure far beyond the lifespan of its creator or audience. In essence, it emphasizes the everlasting nature and impact of artistic creations compared to the brevity of human existence.


"The tricky thing about love is that it raises the stakes."

This quote by Andrew Sean Greer suggests that love, a powerful and profound emotion, heightens the significance of our actions, decisions, and relationships. Love introduces an element of risk, as it increases the potential for both joy and pain. The stakes are high in matters of love because we invest ourselves deeply when we love, making the outcomes more impactful on our emotional wellbeing and life's trajectory.


"Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit."

This quote by Andrew Sean Greer suggests that love is not just a fleeting emotion or romantic gesture, but rather a continuous act of compassion and understanding. The "endless forgiveness" implies that love involves letting go of grudges and past hurts in favor of a patient and merciful perspective towards one's partner. The "tender look which becomes a habit" means that love should be an innate and constant response, as opposed to something that fades or requires constant effort. In essence, Greer is emphasizing the importance of empathy, patience, and understanding in cultivating and maintaining a loving relationship.


"Everyone wants to live on the high ground, and if you don't have any high ground in your soul, you will find some issue to stand on."

This quote suggests that people inherently strive for moral or intellectual superiority, seeking positions of power or authority that elevate them above others. However, if someone lacks personal depth or integrity, they may instead find solace in divisive issues or beliefs, using these as a pretense to feel superior. Essentially, the quote underscores the human tendency to seek validation and self-worth by clinging to strong convictions rather than nurturing one's soul and character.


"We all want to be loved, but not too much, just enough."

This quote suggests a universal human desire for love, yet it acknowledges the complexity and nuance in how much love we wish to receive. We desire to feel loved, appreciated, and valued, but not to such an extent that it overwhelms our sense of self or independence. The "just enough" implies a delicate balance where love is both fulfilling and respectful, neither suffocating nor neglected. It's a profound reflection on the emotional needs we have as humans and our struggle to find the right amount of love in relationships.


My mom is an experimental chemist and physicist, so she is a cut-and-dried, nuts-and-bolts kind of woman, and my dad is a theoretical chemist, so we were definitely raised with his philosophical point of view: imaginary numbers and dimensions beyond our own. That's the kind of thing we would talk about.

- Andrew Sean Greer

Woman, Theoretical, Dad, Physicist

I wake up at 10. I have coffee, and then I spend a half an hour on the computer, where I read newspapers and progressive blogs. I have to tear myself away, or I'll spend all day reading.

- Andrew Sean Greer

Away, Half, Read, Progressive

My mother is a southern lady with short dark hair and a wary, blue-eyed smile. She is also an experimental chemist and teaches a college course entitled The Chemistry of Cooking.

- Andrew Sean Greer

College, Chemistry, Southern, Blue-Eyed

I feel like artists, as much as we'd like to think we're communal, are pretty much loners.

- Andrew Sean Greer

Think, Pretty, Like, Communal

My grandmother wore a beehive hairdo even when it was out of fashion.

- Andrew Sean Greer

Grandmother, Even, Wore, Beehive

Critics, how I would love if you could clear the word 'sentimental' from your minds.

- Andrew Sean Greer

Love, Clear, Could, Sentimental

For writers: don't hold back. Be weird. Be sentimental. Be melodramatic. Take the risk of being not-cool, not-hip.

- Andrew Sean Greer

Weird, Back, Take, Sentimental

I hadn't meant to do the pattern of publishing short stories and then a novel. I thought, 'I'm a novelist. I know it.' But you have to kind of write a lot of bad novels before you can write a good one, I think, so I did that. But meanwhile, I loved the short stories I did.

- Andrew Sean Greer

Thought, Bad, I Think, Meanwhile

Usually on Sundays, I won't cook because I'll have dinner at my mom's. She's the provost of Mills College in Oakland and lives on campus. It's a very beautiful school in a very bad part of town.

- Andrew Sean Greer

College, Very, Lives, Oakland

You can look at my books and not find particular joy on every page because, of course, what you want to write about is the difficulty of the human experience. You don't want to lie about things to make happy endings and weddings if they don't deserve to happen. But I would be lying if I didn't try to communicate some of the pleasure of being alive.

- Andrew Sean Greer

Alive, Communicate, Some, Endings

Science fiction writers, when I was a kid, were a big deal.

- Andrew Sean Greer

Big, Deal, Fiction Writers, Science Fiction

I would write these novels about bullies in school: 'The Bullies: a Novel.'

- Andrew Sean Greer

School, About, Would, Novels

I had never heard of 'young adult novels,' which I guess are about teenage gangs and the new boy in town or something.

- Andrew Sean Greer

New, Town, Which, Novels

You write three pages over six hours, and you don't feel like you've gotten anywhere, but if you've done a beautiful metaphor or a lovely sentence, or you finally got to some moment you wanted, then that's worth it. Then you can close your computer and get a little relief.

- Andrew Sean Greer

Feel, Some, Gotten, Relief

An elephant funeral makes me weep every time, and so does an ad with a kid leaving home for college.

- Andrew Sean Greer

College, Kid, Ad, Every Time

They say you hit your stride as a writer at about 50. I'm hoping to do that.

- Andrew Sean Greer

Hit, Hoping, About, Stride

To say 'A High Wind in Jamaica' is a novel about children who are abducted by pirates is to make it seem like a children's book. But that's completely wrong; its theme is actually how heartless children are.

- Andrew Sean Greer

Like, Heartless, Pirates, Wind

'A High Wind in Jamaica' is like those books you used to read under the covers with a flashlight - only infinitely more delicious... and macabre.

- Andrew Sean Greer

Like, Infinitely, Read, Wind

They had a contest where they would - for some reason, someone in the past loved musical theater, and so if you wrote a musical, they would fully fund it and put it on the main stage with full costumes and a set and everything, and my roommate said we should totally do that.

- Andrew Sean Greer

Reason, Some, Had, Costumes

Some people think of the '50s as a time of innocence, but they are misremembering it or reinventing it: if you look at the papers of the time, they are filled with dread and anxiety.

- Andrew Sean Greer

Think, Innocence, Some, Reinventing

A downside to being a successful novelist? Wow - I can't imagine one.

- Andrew Sean Greer

Imagine, Downside, Being, Wow

I have come to this conclusion: if 'sentimentality' is lazy emotion, then the term itself is lazy criticism.

- Andrew Sean Greer

Emotion, Conclusion, Itself, Sentimentality

To distract myself from writing, I was singing Bob Dylan's 'My Back Pages.' You know, 'I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now.' I thought, 'I should write a character like that.'

- Andrew Sean Greer

Character, Thought, Back, Dylan

My country is nothing if not diverse.

- Andrew Sean Greer

Country, Nothing, Diverse

A lot of problems get solved in those sort of in-between moments when your subconscious has been working on some problem. If you keep it spinning, you can fix ideas sometimes better than if you focus on them directly.

- Andrew Sean Greer

Sometimes, Some, Been, In-Between

I think what shaped me was I had two parents who were scientists, and especially, they were great readers. They had both grown up in sort of rural parts of the South and were oddballs where they grew up. They were budding intellectuals.

- Andrew Sean Greer

I Think, Shaped, South, Intellectuals

Every writer is an outsider.

- Andrew Sean Greer

Writer, Every, Outsider

I was good in biology, but I did very badly in chemistry, and my parents were horrified by that.

- Andrew Sean Greer

Chemistry, Very, Badly, Horrified

It's hard to tell if I've had writer's block because it seems to me that it's when nothing comes, but, you know, every day you stare at that computer screen, and I think, 'It's never going to happen today. How can I write three pages?' And the hours pass, and they haven't shown up, and then at the very end it always happens, so it's willpower.

- Andrew Sean Greer

I Think, Very, I Write, Block

I have to get three pages done every day, and there's usually a point about 150 pages in where everything falls apart, where all the plans are for naught. The book has become something else, and I have a nervous breakdown, and then I submit to what the book has become, and I keep going, and that's a terrible and then a great time.

- Andrew Sean Greer

Book, Great Time, Submit, Apart

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