Elif Batuman Quotes
My parents were educated in the Turkish system and went straight from high school to medical school; my mom, who had skipped a grade, was dissecting corpses at age seventeen. Growing up in America, I think I envied my parents' education. By comparison, everything I did in school seemed so sort of low-stakes and infantilizing.
Quotes to Explore
-
While you are improvising, you need to be prepared, and I like to have a sense of who the character is, what she likes to read, where she grew up, where we went to school, and what she has for breakfast, so that when I go to set, I'm free to explore.
-
My father had a lot of allergies, and he just didn't like the cold of Chicago, and his father - his parents had broken up when he was young, and his father had lived in Pasadena for a while, and he kind of fell in love with Southern California.
-
I was growing up in the 50's and 60's. Back then they didn't even know what dyslexia was.
-
My mom just understands about stuff. We have a really good trust, and she knows I can take care of myself.
-
Children are educated by what the grown-up is and not by his talk.
-
Our parents were really, really grounded people but also really ambitious people, meaning they saw our ambition and were willing to help us chase it.
-
I love to walk through the streets of Jesus Maria and Pueblo Libre. The Spanish colonial buildings are in bright colors, two stories high, with these intricate wooden, windowed balconies.
-
No press, no television. If my mom calls and says, 'Did you hear about?' I don't want to know nothing about anything that is going on in relation to music. I shut it all off.
-
The only way I hear gossip is if it's big enough and loud enough for my friends to bring it up to me. Or if it's, like, a big untrue ordeal from my publicist – and she hates making that phone call!
-
My parents never talked to me like I was a kid. Maybe that's why I've been seen as mature.
-
When I was growing up, I was teased for being too skinny. I went to summer camp when I was 11. I wore shorts, and the nurse said to me, in front of all my friends, that I was anorexic and that she had to monitor me to make sure I was eating. Because of that trauma, I never wore short pants or short skirts until I was 20.
-
I had a lot of times with Wales as well when we were getting beat - and beaten well - and you learn to deal with it. You learn that next time it happens, you roll your sleeves up and give everything for the team.
-
Some scientists claim - although these claims are contentious - that they can form deadly isomers with simple X-rays and that hafnium can multiply the power of these X-rays to an astounding degree, converting them into gamma rays up to 250 times more potent than the X-rays.
-
Tales of cheating on school and college tests are rife. There have been instances where teachers have given students test answers in order to make themselves look good on their performance reviews. Mentors who should be teaching the opposite are sending a message that lying and cheating are acceptable.
-
You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.
-
I was always interested in the arts as a child - drawing, painting, and piano - but acting became a favourite. I was a major theatre geek in high school - if I wasn't in the drama room at lunch rehearsing, I'd be in the art room finishing up some type of project.
-
The only time I eat alone is if I'm really tired or upset about something or on the phone to one of my friends, when it's easier to be alone. But you can't be too wrapped up in yourself... it starts making you look a little bit prima donna.
-
If the Christians who were alive in the 1770s behaved and believed like the Christians of today, there wouldn't be an America as we know it.
-
Music and fashion are a sign of the times and a reflection of what people want and need at this very day and age.
-
It's only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth - and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up, we will then begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had.
-
I don't think we are going to become extinct. We're very clever and extremely resourceful - and we will find ways of preserving ourselves, of that I'm sure. But whether our lives will be as rich as they are now is another question.
-
Travelling is a great time to catch up on my reading. It's hard falling asleep in new places, but a good book always makes it easier.
-
I could have begged. They made it obvious to me that if I wanted to come back and be a good boy... but I'd rather be in Roots than Good Times.
-
My parents were educated in the Turkish system and went straight from high school to medical school; my mom, who had skipped a grade, was dissecting corpses at age seventeen. Growing up in America, I think I envied my parents' education. By comparison, everything I did in school seemed so sort of low-stakes and infantilizing.
