‘Damn, brother. You saw what they did to my face? / Poked out my eyes. Knocked teeth out of place’.
Boy, yaar, they sure called me some good names of late:
e.g. opportunist (dangerous). E.g. full-of-hate,
self-aggrandizing, Satan, self-loathing and shrill,
the type it would clean up the planet to kill.
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‘I think there should be a National Service of Hospitality. The best way to see the true face of humanity is to serve it a plate of chips.’
Camilla Grudova on bad-mannered customers.
‘Anyone who has ever worked night shifts will understand the vertiginous feeling that comes with staring down the day from the wrong end.’
A.K. Blakemore on working nights.
‘I was constantly reading job ads, trying to find my holy grail – a job I could stand to do, and someone foolish enough to hire me.’
Sandra Newman on learning how to play professional blackjack.
‘I loved being a receptionist. What I loved about it was playing the part of being a receptionist.’
Emily Berry on being a temporary office worker.
‘Every part of you would swell, including your eyeballs, and no matter how much water you drank, you were always dehydrated.’
Junot Díaz on working for a steel mill.
‘I grew up kissing books and bread.’
Salman Rushdie defends the act of writing novels.
Blake Morrison interviews Salman Rushdie in 1990, one year after he was placed under fatwa.
‘Let me tell you, boyo, bach: I love this place, where green hills shelter me from fear.’
‘You open a book by a writer you’ve never heard of and a new voice leaps off the page and makes you listen.’
‘I'm not quite the same person as the ‘me’ about whom the book is written.’
‘Teleki would gasp and sputter and grow red in the face and the audience would love it.’ Tamas Dobozy in Granta 107
