Elif Batuman Quotes
When in doubt, it is better to do the less conservative thing and to err on the side of the more colorful, possibly terrible mistake. That comes from thinking of yourself as a writer.
Quotes to Explore
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As I followed my dream - stayed in-Spirit, that is, inspired - I made more money in the first year after I gave up my employment than I had made in the previous 35 years of my life.
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I would love to direct one day. I value the relationship that I have with a director so much, and I would be really excited to be on the other end of that relationship.
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I dig all kinds of competition.
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It's hard not to get depressed when you pay attention to the world and how strangely and corrupt the people in it sometimes behave.
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Sometimes, I find that just the simplest, cleanest things that are intelligently performed are funniest to me.
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I realized I didn't want to be a photographer. I gave it up, but I still worked that job in the restaurant and I found myself constantly hanging out in the kitchen.
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American business at this point is really about developing an idea, making it profitable, selling it while it's profitable and then getting out or diversifying. It's just about sucking everything up.
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They have all different names for music. I think the music I'm going to change the style with is going to be really, really big-years and years after I'm gone.
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I barely watch TV apart from the news. Most of it is rubbish. There's all this reality nonsense and dross. I think there's a market for a well-produced, well-written melodrama like 'Dallas.' It's pure entertainment.
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Many comedians have a dark side that lets them take a negative thing and turn it funny.
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My hair is such a statement that it's like a neon sign asking for trouble.
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I'm a small and normal girl, and stories like mine no one likes to tell. Fortunately so, because I wouldn't like to play myself.
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My physical transformations - like changing my hair - are usually a reflection of what's inspiring me at the moment.
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I hate overweight, because it implies that there's a weight standard I should be adhering to.
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I mark the reading of 'Look Homeward, Angel' as one of the pivotal events of my life. It starts off with the single greatest, knock-your-socks-off first page I have ever come across in my careful reading of world literature.
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I was born and raised in Louisiana - a small town called Ferriday, north of Baton Rouge.
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What makes us Americans is something more than just the circumstances of birth, what we look like, what God we worship, but rather it is a joyful spirit of citizenship. Citizenship demands participation and responsibility, and service to our country and to one another. And few embody that more than our men and women in uniform.
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We are now confronted with the necessity of remedying the remedies.
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It's amazing how many people even today use a computer to do something you can do with a pencil and paper in less time.
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I think it's undignified to read for the purposes of escape. After you grow up, you should start reading for other purposes
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Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.
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To me, torture would be, "I can't think what to write in the next sentence. I'm stuck." Torture would be if you didn't have the next idea.
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When you're 50 you start thinking about things you haven't thought about before. I used to think getting old was about vanity - but actually it's about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial.
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When in doubt, it is better to do the less conservative thing and to err on the side of the more colorful, possibly terrible mistake. That comes from thinking of yourself as a writer.
