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
-
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.
-
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.
-
I'm happy to say that I'm a lesbian in the world. I know there are people who don't want to be called women comedians, but I think it gives a path to the fact that we live in extremely patriarchal times.
-
By 2000, politics will simply fade away. We will not see any political parties.
-
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.
-
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.
-
I will say I am the sum of my books.
-
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.
-
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.
-
I look for something that is highly unusual, involving ordinary people caught in extraordinary situations.
-
I definitely like wearing leotards.
-
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.
-
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.
-
The minute you start feeling like you've got it down, you know what you're doing, you're dead in the water.
-
You feel yourself working to show something. I've learned to distrust that feeling.
-
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.
-
Success is getting what you want. Happiness is liking what you get.
-
There were times when chemo would eat my body, but I told myself that I have the strength and courage to win and come out stronger.
-
I grew up studying music. I went to conservatory.
-
I went to a very academically competitive high school. So I was always quite studious and quiet, just to keep up with the other geniuses who were in my school.
-
You meet a lot of people and have a lot of experiences, and they color you and stay with you - but I'm not the grieving widow. Life is much more complicated and interesting and full of zigs and zags than that.
-
The kindness that's been shown to me, by doctors as well as my family and my friends, it's really saved my life.
-
Being ambivalent doesn't mean that you're a relevatist, that anything goes; it just means that you show the complexity of life. Life is always complex.
-
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.
