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 more accurately one can illuminate a particular human experience, the better the work of art. — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
For those of us whose thoughts digress; for whom unexpected juxtapositions are exhilarating rather than tiresome; who aim, if always inadequately, to… — 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, it was a formative experience reading Eliot when I was younger. 'The Waste Land,' in particular. — 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
What is the truth? Is it what you experience? Is it what I experience? Or is there some objective truth in between? — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
I feel as though there are things that I'm trying to do - you know, capturing truthfully some aspect of human experience… — 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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
The fictional narratives that television, film, and the news provide for girls and young women are appalling. — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
“I don't want to sleep,' my mother said. 'I want -- for God's sake, I want to wake up.” — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
