If I could start over today, I would choose literature again. If the answers exist in the world or in the universe,… — Elif Batuman Copy Share Image
There is this way that I felt when I was younger that we were beyond history and we were all citizens of… — Elif Batuman Copy Share Image
If you're writing a book where you want to make a positive truth claim, then you should absolutely call it nonfiction or… — Elif Batuman Copy Share Image
I've gotten a lot of comfort from the philosophy of the Roman Stoics. For me, one of the most powerful ideas of… — Elif Batuman Copy Share Image
Every time a meteor comes close to the earth, we all think about the end of the world - but our internal… — Elif Batuman Copy Share Image
I don't think anything can substitute long talks, and long talks are somehow never as easy to schedule again as they were… — Elif Batuman Copy Share Image
Awkwardness comes from the realization that, when you look around the world, it's difficult to identify anyone who isn't either the victim… — Elif Batuman Copy Share Image
The Himalayan glaciers, China's trade surplus, Olympic ice hockey - the world is full of pressing subjects that people never consult me… — Elif Batuman Copy Share Image
When you're reading a novel, I think the reason you care about how any given plot turns out is that you take… — 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 Image
“I leafed through the phrase book. If a Martian read it, the Martian would probably decide to avoid Hungary.” — Elif Batuman Copy Share Image
You can't invent something you have no epistemological access to. In a way, it's all recombination. — Elif Batuman Copy Share Image
Poetry is another space, like love, where we extend that extra credit to the writer. — Elif Batuman Copy Share Image
“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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
I like to think that I know a lot of words, but I definitely don't know all of them. — Elif Batuman Copy Share Image
“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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
