Mark Helprin
Mark Helprin
Mark Helprinis an American novelist, journalist, conservative commentator, Senior Fellow of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy, Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, and Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. While Helprin's fictional works straddle a number of disparate genres and styles, he has stated that he "belongs to no literary school, movement, tendency, or trend"...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth28 June 1947
CountryUnited States of America
rushing water alive
There's something about rushing water that I can watch for hours and feel as if I need to do nothing more. It's alive in a way that's greater than any description of it...
imperfect-world bridges cities
Why do people resist [engines, bridges, and cities] so? They are symbols and products of the imagination, which is the force that ensures justice and historical momentum in an imperfect world, because without imagination we would not have the wherewithal to challenge certainty, and we could never rise above ourselves.
dream just-a-dream
They're not just dreams. Not anymore, I dream more than I wake now, and, at times, I have crossed over. Can't you see? I've been there.
editors people world
Marxists are people whose insides are torn up day after day because they want to rule the world and no one will even publish their letter to the editor.
rainy-day finding-yourself enemy
The best way to meet a woman is in an emergency situation - if you're in a shipwreck, or you find yourself behind enemy lines, or in a flood.
cemeteries endless famous gardeners grave largely military rows section seemingly stand tend time tourism
In American military cemeteries all over the world, seemingly endless rows of whitened grave markers stand largely unvisited and in silence. The gardeners tend the lawns, one section at a time. Even at the famous sites, tourism is inconstant.
arts community concerned dominated generally history liberals mainly naturally painting politics study time understanding
The arts community is generally dominated by liberals because if you are concerned mainly with painting or sculpture, you don't have time to study how the world works. And if you have no understanding of economics, strategy, history and politics, then naturally you would be a liberal.
civil financier floor general hay raised rats stable war
I was raised on the Hudson, in a house that had been the stable of the financier and Civil War general Brayton Ives. In midcentury, we had fire pits in the floor for heating, and rats everywhere, because they nested in the hay insulation.
action automatic couple elevation extent feeling goes happened people small soldier start strikes tremendous war zone
The thing that strikes you most about being a soldier in a war zone and in action to the small extent that I was, when actually people start shooting, which happened to me a couple of times, everything goes on automatic and there's a feeling of tremendous elevation and even elation.
almost america built continue descendant good immigrant immigrants legal people work
Of course, everyone in the New World is an immigrant or a descendant of immigrants, and immigrants have built America and continue to do so. Legal or illegal, they are almost universally good people who work to better their lot and that of their children.
case exists good special spirit treating work
No good case exists for the inequality of real and intellectual property, because no good case can exist for treating with special disfavor the work of the spirit and the mind.
anarchy beat both coexist control design discipline extreme freedom henry human james life necessary poets suggest work
The craftless anarchy of the Beat poets on the one hand, and the extreme control of Henry James on the other, suggest that for most human beings, just as both freedom and discipline are necessary in life, serendipity and design must coexist in a work to make it readable.
ask people
When people ask me why is 'Winter's Tale' a fantasy, I point out that it is not a fantasy.
fit hard life tried worked
One of the things I worked very hard on all my life was to be like everyone else. I tried very hard to fit in.