Elif Batuman Quotes
Read enough about the dung beetle, and a picture of its character emerges: patient, optimistic, uncomplaining.
Quotes to Explore
-
I was a little girl fighting as a partisan against Nazi-Fascism.
-
For it is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest that holds human associations together. Our friends seldom profit us but they make us feel safe. Marriage is a scheme to accomplish exactly that same end.
-
Ten men waiting for me at the door? Send one of them home, I'm tired.
-
I'm from Brooklyn. In Brooklyn, if you say, 'I'm dangerous', you'd better be dangerous.
-
For years, Judaism has been a sort of product put on the religious shelf, and on holidays, we would take it off the shelf and let seculars play with it for a bit. Now, Judaism is going back to being something that more closely touches everyone.
-
I love adventure sports. And, I love cooking.
-
Even before it opened its retail arm, Beigh was renowned among pashmina cognoscenti for the quality and complexity of the work produced in its workshop, a large, airy, sunlit rectangle of a room directly across from its second-floor shop.
-
Corruption is in society and in every strata of society.
-
It's not like I've ever been the popular pretty girl at school or anything. I was always such a weirdo.
-
What is lost in the good or excellent translation is precisely the best.
-
Personality is everything that's false in a human: everything that's been added on to him and contrived.
-
Would we be so enamored with dystopian fiction if we lived in a culture where violent death was a major concern? It wouldn't be escapism.
-
Agitation is the atmosphere of the brains.
-
We all understand it's a privilege just to be playing in this league.
-
I love playing sports. I'm overly eager and aggressive and not very skilled, so it leads to many small injuries.
-
I would love to be a professional athlete. When I was living in Mexico as a teenager, I did seven years of gymnastics and went to the Junior Olympics. I was getting to the level of going to the international competitions, but I was only 14, and my parents were really worried because they did not want that to be my life.
-
You can stroke people with words.
-
I used homeopathy, acupuncture, yoga and meditation in conjunction with my chemotherapy to help me get stronger again after the cancer. I also chanted with Buddhist friends and prayed with Christian friends. I covered all my bases.
-
It is as absurd to expect members of philosophy departments to be philosophers as it is to expect members of art departments to be artists.
-
Enemies' promises were made to be broken.
-
British fashion is self confident and fearless. It refuses to bow to commerce, thus generating a constant flow of new ideas whilst drawing in British heritage.
-
Learning to stand in somebody else's shoes, to see through their eyes, that's how peace begins. And it's up to you to make that happen. Empathy is a quality of character that can change the world.
-
Sadly, this picture [ Joy] does not go from strength to strength. It sinks into a morass of tedious obstacles to this woman's success. Joy the person may be able to surmount all barriers, but the film with her name on it is not so fortunate.
-
Read enough about the dung beetle, and a picture of its character emerges: patient, optimistic, uncomplaining.
