I'm a big believer in the complex realities of young people's lives. — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
Rushing around can be a pointless diversion from actually living your life. — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
“Life is about deciding what matters. It's about the fantasy that determines the reality.” — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
An abiding preoccupation for me is how much of our lives are invisible and unknown by other people, like the Chekhov story… — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
I measure my life out in books." "You should be measuring your life by living. Correction: you shouldn't be measuring your life.… — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
I still believe on some level that at the end, somebody will say, 'You get an A-minus for your life.' And it's… — 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… — 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's funny. You have to find a way to keep going, to keep laughing, even after you realize that none of your… — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
I went around in my teens and early 20s thinking that life was a con trick. I had managed to grow up… — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
“The whole world seemed a maze of shifting mirrors in which I wandered alone, looking always and frenziedly for the exit back… — 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
If you live in a family or have five roommates, there's some sort of reality check, but when you live alone, there's… — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
When I am teaching, I first give out Tolstoy's 'Childhood,' his first published book. It is so transparent. It gives you exactly… — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
The effort to create a work of art that is true and potentially lasting, that is the very best work of art… — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
Sometimes I think about all the hours spent making lunches, carting kids from one place to another, being up in the middle… — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
“My everyday Appleton life, my phones calls to my father, my occasional beers with friends, my Saturday-morning jobs around the reservoir -… — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
“but this is what I think: you only see what you expect to see. Your brain lets the rest go. Because life’s… — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
My mother turned 40 in 1973. So in 1970 - when 'The Female Eunuch' came out and Ms. magazine was founded -… — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
If you’re reading to find friends, you’re in deep trouble. We read to find life, in all its possibilities. The relevant question… — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
“I was crazy. I was crazy in the way a child is crazy, in the way of someone who believes, with rash… — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
Everybody's always living in fiction just as much as children, but the way our stories are faked is curtailed by all sorts… — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
If you're writing a thriller, and you don't make it compelling, then you've really not done your job. So it's easier for… — 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
As my wise friend Didi has more than once observed about life's passages, every departure entails an arrival elsewhere, every arrival implies… — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
“It was one of those moments when life's disguises are stripped away, when you see clearly what is real, and all you… — 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
