Yes, writing is essential to me. It's my way of living in the world. — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
Awards bolster your confidence in wonderful ways. But they aren't the world. — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
I digress a lot - it's how I experience the world. I would like to write in a way that will convey… — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
The way I saw the world as a child was not wrong. And it's okay to see the world that way. If… — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
In a globalised world, so many of us move around so much. You lose things, but you also gain things - or… — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
You lose something in not being rooted, but you gain something by seeing the world differently. It's both a loss and a… — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
In making up stories, as in reading stories, I could create a contained world in which an experience is shared in its… — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
I believe that, in an ideal world, writers would feel free to write what matters to them without having to consider success,… — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
In the world I've lived in, gay marriage, for example, seems completely logical. And yet there are many people who don't live… — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
Maybe that, really, is as good a definition as any of an artist in the world: a ruthless person. — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
And then, into the fantasy, as into a dream, would come the thought: it's not like this anymore; the world has changed.… — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
If people like something you've done - or don't like it - this shouldn't determine what you write or how you write… — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
A painting lets us know how somebody literally saw things. A piece of music is another language that transmits a whole wealth… — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
For me, the ages between 9 and 12 were great because it was before you wore any masks, and you had some… — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
I always thought I'd get farther. I'd like to blame the world for what I've failed to do, but the failure -… — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
I have always been interested in that relationship between what happens in our head and what happens in the world. — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
I have said it somewhere - our literary lived lives are as important as our literally lived lives. — Claire Messud Copy Share
“Life is about deciding what matters. It’s about the fantasy that determines the reality. Have you ever asked yourself whether you’d rather fly or… — Claire Messud Copy Share
Life's funny. You have to find a way to keep going, to keep laughing, even after you realize that none of your dreams will… — Claire Messud Copy Share
It's the strangest thing about being human: to know so much, to communicate so much, and yet always to fall so drastically short of… — Claire Messud Copy Share
The fictional narratives that television, film, and the news provide for girls and young women are appalling. — Claire Messud Copy Share
“I don't want to sleep,' my mother said. 'I want -- for God's sake, I want to wake up.” — Claire Messud Copy Share
“It was supposed to say “Great Artist” on my tombstone, but if I died right now it would say “such a good teacher/daughter/friend” instead;… — Claire Messud Copy Share
“Live, my dear Nora. Satisfy your hunger. There's food all around you, you know.' 'What kind of food, I'd like to know?' 'Ah'-he smiled-… — Claire Messud Copy Share
I digress a lot - it's how I experience the world. I would like to write in a way that will convey that to… — Claire Messud Copy Share
We think that - as kids, you know - that kids make up stories and live in a sort of fictional place, but that,… — Claire Messud Copy Share
“It makes sense that if you stand almost daily in the middle of a perfect crescent of shore, with a vista open to eternity,… — Claire Messud Copy Share
“Once aware of my isolation, I was afraid not of it but of its interruption.” — Claire Messud Copy Share
“who I am in my head, very few people really get to see that. Almost none. It’s the most precious gift I can give,… — Claire Messud Copy Share
“My everyday Appleton life, my phones calls to my father, my occasional beers with friends, my Saturday-morning jobs around the reservoir - what was… — Claire Messud Copy Share
