That's so her. You know, torn between Big Ideas and a party. She's always been that way. — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
Yes, writing is essential to me. It's my way of living in the world. — 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
I'm not a writing group member, not a joiner in that way. I don't seek a wide swath of feedback. — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
Henry James and Edith Wharton are huge for me because they gave me a way to understand America while still respecting the… — 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
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
Place and displacement have always been central for me. A type of insecurity goes with that: you are always following the cues,… — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
Does Being Happy simply Create More Time, in the way that Being Sad, as we all know, slows time and thickens it,… — 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
Above all, in my anger, I was sad. Isn't that always the way, that at the heart of the fire is a… — Claire Messud Copy Share Image
Nobody would know me from my own description of myself; which is why, when called upon (rarely, I grant) to provide an… — 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
I was in my senior year of high school when I read 'Notes From Underground' by Dostoyevsky, and it was an exhilarating… — 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
