Elif Batuman Quotes
For much of my adult life, I believed, inaccurately, that I knew the story of Charles Dickens's 'A Christmas Carol' - that I remembered it from childhood.
Quotes to Explore
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I like writing about places, about people and environments. When I create a world, it lets me go in and define the details of that world.
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A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.
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By 2000, politics will simply fade away. We will not see any political parties.
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The average Nigerian person has come to reconcile himself with the fact that his or her social progress remain essentially in his or her hands in collaboration with other fellow Nigerians and not merely relying on what government alone could provide for him or her.
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I've been designing since I was 8. I started sketching dresses I could wear when skating. I was always involved in all aspects of skating, not just the technique, the choreography, the music, but the visual aspects, too - what I should wear.
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I will say I am the sum of my books.
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I would love to do some more comedy. I would love to do some silliness. I would love to do some characters that have greater vulnerability.
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I'm a relic, and things were a lot different when I was fifteen and sixteen. There were no cell phones, no laptops... I learned to type on an actual typewriter.
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I look for something that is highly unusual, involving ordinary people caught in extraordinary situations.
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I definitely like wearing leotards.
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You do show after show after show and get them done and on the air. Television devours material. We work a minimum of 12, 14 hours, and often 15, 18 hours a day.
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The Paris peace talks kept a roof over my head and food on the table and clothes on my back because if something was said going in or coming out, I had the rent for the month.
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The minute you start feeling like you've got it down, you know what you're doing, you're dead in the water.
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You feel yourself working to show something. I've learned to distrust that feeling.
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Going around not fully believing that you're going to die is really problematic because it affects how you think about the future of the planet, about the future of your own life, about the decisions you're making.
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Success is getting what you want. Happiness is liking what you get.
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I grew up studying music. I went to conservatory.
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President Bush and I had asked Congress to appropriate a half-billion dollars to school vouchers. We didn't get it, and we were disappointed. But we did not go out and form a corporation to pay for it. That would have been a problem.
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I don't think literature would be possible in a determined world. We might go through the motions but the heart would be out of it. Nobody could then 'smile darkly and ignore the howls.' Even if there were no Church to teach me this, writing two novels would do it. I think the more you write, the less inclined you will be to rely on theories like determinism. Mystery isn't something that is gradually evaporating. It grows along with knowledge.
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Not even analysis, by itself, can transform you. You must still do the changing yourself.
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I have worked with the biggest actors from the beginning. I am hoping God will bless me to work with other big actors.
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I am a romantic, and I think dates are wonderful. I like quirky and fun things. Like going for a bike ride or for a pedicure together.
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Anthropologists are great at novelistic observations. I would be thrilled if this novel would encourage anthropologists to write what they see in fictional form.
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For much of my adult life, I believed, inaccurately, that I knew the story of Charles Dickens's 'A Christmas Carol' - that I remembered it from childhood.
