Elif Batuman Quotes

To think of Tolstoy eating a sandwich is intrinsically kind of funny.

Elif Batuman

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Quotes to Explore

• Wisdom is the abstract of the past, but beauty is the promise of the future.

  

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
  • Future
  • Past
  • Wisdom

• We do not yet have the solutions to these questions, but the awareness that we live in an endangered world is present in more and more life situations.

  

  Ulrich Beck
  • Life
  • World
  • Live

• During the decade following the discovery of the double-helical structure of DNA, the problem of translation - namely, how genetic information is used to synthesize proteins - was a central topic in molecular biology.

  

  Venkatraman Ramakrishnan
  • Information
  • Discovery

• I don't think young men or women should feel pressured into marriage. You shouldn't marry anyone, in my opinion, who you have to try hard for.

  

  Rachael Ray
  • Men
  • Women
  • Marriage

• When you assume negative intent, you're angry. If you take away that anger and assume positive intent, you will be amazed. Your emotional quotient goes up because you are no longer almost random in your response.

  

  Indra Nooyi
  • Up
  • Positive
  • Emotional

• I love the simplicity and freedom of running. A pair of shoes, and you are all set to explore new trails.

  

  Rachel Boston
  • Love
  • Freedom
  • Running

• You can tell a lot about a person just by watching their facial expressions. But there are times when it's best to hide your feelings, especially at work.

  

  Dana Perino
  • Work
  • Best
  • Feelings

• In most cases, my favorite Jethro Tull songs will be determined by how I feel about them as live performance songs, not by the recorded identity.

  

  Ian Anderson
  • Live
  • Identity
  • Performance

• Whether it's threats to Medicare, cuts in education spending, or Internet privacy, the ramifications got young people out to vote and should be enough to keep them involved in our political system.

  

  Patrick Murphy
  • People
  • Political
  • Education

• A bicycle has transformed my experience of London.

  

  Iain Glen
  • Experience
  • London
  • Bicycle

• The atomic bomb made the prospect of future war unendurable. It has led us up those last few steps to the mountain pass; and beyond there is a different country.

  

  J. Robert Oppenheimer
  • Up
  • Different
  • Country

• The only rule is don't be boring and dress cute wherever you go. Life is too short to blend in.

  

  Paris Hilton
  • Life
  • Cute
  • Life Is Too Short

• When my daughter wanted a toy and I had to check the price of it before buying it - that was one of the worst feelings.

  

  Tablo
  • Feelings
  • Daughter
  • Price

• Most attractive males talk to most attractive women as if they were Rotarians comparing sales percentages in Des Moines.

  

  Barbara Walters
  • Women
  • Sales
  • Most

• On my desk, I always have a lemon or a lime drying. I love the fragrance. Also, a Staedtler eraser, a brush for the eraser and a pencil sharpener.

  

  Maira Kalman
  • Fragrance
  • Lemon
  • Lime

• I didn't get anything published until I was thirty-three, and yet I'd written five novels and six or seven plays. The plays, I should point out, were dreadful.

  

  Edmund White
  • Point
  • Novels
  • Seven

• Les Miserables is one of my favorite stories.

  

  Larry King
  • Stories
  • Favorite
  • Les

• I've learned a lot of tricks from working with a lot of great producers over the years, and I think I should write a book about it!

  

  Ace Frehley Kiss
  • Great
  • Book
  • Think

• On this shrunken globe, men can no longer live as strangers.

  

  Adlai E. Stevenson
  • Men
  • Live

• In knowing how to overcome little things, a centimeter at a time, gradually when bigger things come, you're prepared.

  

  Katherine Dunham
  • Time
  • Overcome
  • Centimeter

• An early editor characterized my books as 'romantic comedy for intelligent adults.' I think people see them as funny but kind. I don't set out to write either funny or kind, but it's a voice they like, quirky like me... And you know, people like happy endings.

  

  Elinor Lipman
  • People
  • Happy
  • Funny

• Ordinarily, I'd claim that I'd never write directly about my children, but the opening conversation of 'Peter Elroy' is a verbatim conversation that my children had that I just loved: morbid, funny, passionate, and obsessed with the truth of things - all natural qualities of children that I'd like my work to contain.

  

  Elizabeth McCracken
  • Work
  • Children
  • Truth

• I'm terrible about people wanting to take pictures with me. I'm a giant baby about it. They treat you like a cartoon. There's nothing you can do except make light of it. That's if I'm in the mood – sometimes I get superbummed.

  

  Zach Galifianakis
  • Light
  • Baby
  • Mood

• To think of Tolstoy eating a sandwich is intrinsically kind of funny.

  

  Elif Batuman
  • Funny