“It was weird what was enough to make you feel good or bad, even though your basic life circumstances were the same.” — Elif Batuman Copy Share Image
Much as there are things about our own life stories that we can learn only from the systematic study of our dreams,… — Elif Batuman Copy Share Image
For much of my adult life, I believed, inaccurately, that I knew the story of Charles Dickens's 'A Christmas Carol' - that… — Elif Batuman Copy Share Image
“I understood that the rest of my life would consist of causing Ivan to lug that suitcase in and out of his… — Elif Batuman Copy Share Image
“I thought maybe Against Nature would be a book about someone who viewed things the way I did - someone trying to… — Elif Batuman Copy Share Image
When you started looking at the life of Tolstoy, there was so much passion and anger and drama surrounding him. — Elif Batuman Copy Share Image
Reading Epictetus, I realized that most of the pain in my life came not from any actual privations or insults but, rather,… — Elif Batuman Copy Share Image
When you walk around, you have all this stuff rattling around in your head, things that have happened to you, things you… — Elif Batuman Copy Share Image
The first modern novel was already a product, even an expression, of negative criticism: 'Don Quixote' contains a quite explicit critique of… — Elif Batuman Copy Share Image
The dominant question for us with regard to literature has become, 'What does this have to do with me, with life as… — Elif Batuman Copy Share Image
Now that I'm almost forty, I look back at some of the decisions I made when I was younger - decisions that… — Elif Batuman Copy Share Image
One of the most painful parts of a breakup is having the feeling that your life is a story, and then the… — Elif Batuman Copy Share Image
In a way all writers are writing against death, because writing is an attempt to defy the passage of time, to refuse… — Elif Batuman Copy Share Image
“what does 'functioning normally' mean?" I asked. "Being able to face the past. Having a normal sex life. Not lying awake all… — Elif Batuman Copy Share Image
Tolstoy didn't know about steampunk or cyborgs, but he did know about the nightmarishness of steam power, unruly machines, and the creepy… — Elif Batuman Copy Share Image
“but at the end of class, I still felt slightly annoyed towards Ivan, the way you feel towards someone in real life… — Elif Batuman Copy Share Image
“They didn't take anything I did seriously; it was all some trivial, mildly annoying side activity that I insisted on for some… — Elif Batuman Copy Share Image
Many books have changed my life, but only one has the word 'life-changing' in the title: Marie Kondo's 'The Life-Changing Magic of… — Elif Batuman Copy Share Image
Even in novels where the love relationship isn't the focus, I feel like it's often there, and the background is some barometer… — Elif Batuman Copy Share Image
My parents were born into a secular country. They met in Turkey's top medical school, moved to America in the nineteen-seventies, and became researchers… — Elif Batuman Copy Share
“I leafed through the phrase book. If a Martian read it, the Martian would probably decide to avoid Hungary.” — Elif Batuman Copy Share
You can't invent something you have no epistemological access to. In a way, it's all recombination. — Elif Batuman Copy Share
Poetry is another space, like love, where we extend that extra credit to the writer. — Elif Batuman Copy Share
“Svetlana said that she identified with that Madonna more than with any other woman in any other painting. She kept asking me what painting… — Elif Batuman Copy Share
One of the most painful parts of a breakup is having the feeling that your life is a story, and then the other person… — Elif Batuman Copy Share
“Dracula visited the Wolf Department at the Zoological Gardens. "These wolves seem upset at something," he observed. The next morning the cage was all… — Elif Batuman Copy Share
I like to think that I know a lot of words, but I definitely don't know all of them. — Elif Batuman Copy Share
“I don't know if I ended up siding with the academics just because I happened to end up in graduate school, or if I… — Elif Batuman Copy Share
People don't become writers because they love having spontaneous, real-world interactions with living people as bodies with clothes in time. — Elif Batuman Copy Share
“Each work of criticism is supposed to build on the body of work, to increase the total sum of human understanding. It's not like… — Elif Batuman Copy Share
Humor is really important to me. All my favorite writers are writers I consider to be funny, including Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, even though that's… — Elif Batuman Copy Share
Every time a meteor comes close to the earth, we all think about the end of the world - but our internal soundtrack doesn't… — Elif Batuman Copy Share
I felt grateful to Ataturk that my parents were so well educated, that they weren't held back by superstition or religion, that they were… — Elif Batuman Copy Share
“For a moment it felt like we weren’t in the Danube at all but in the river of time, and everyone was at a… — Elif Batuman Copy Share
