Elif Batuman Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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I've had a pretty charmed life, so there's nothing that I need to take too seriously right now.
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When companies get big, they slow down. They're not as exciting. If you want to get something done, it takes a lot of time and a lot of meetings.
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They don't call it the Internet anymore, they call it cloud computing. I'm no longer resisting the name. Call it what you want.
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I propose a Constitutional Amendment providing that, if any public official, elected or appointed, at any level of government, is caught lying to any member of the public for any reason, the punishment shall be death by public hanging.
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Novelty is always welcome but talking pictures are just a fad.
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I have written a lot about the fine arts, but I'd never written about the literary arts, and so on some level Dante really, you know, spoke to me, as new ground but also familiar ground.
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Cartooning was a good fit for me. And yet now, years later, I almost never think about it.
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If the 'Post' can play the role of a connector between the West and the East, I have confidence in the paper's future success.
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Waiting for me in Stockholm will be a personal assistant - Katrina from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs - as well the secretary of the Swedish Academy. They'll help us with our things and take us to our hotel. From the moment I arrive, I'll always be together with the other two laureates.
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If you live through the initial stage of fame and get past it, and remember thats not who you are. If you live past that, then you have a hope of maybe learning how to spell the word artist.
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The lives of African-Americans in this country are characterized by violence for most of our history. Much of that violence, at least to some extent, you know, done by the very state that's supposed to protect them.
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The hardest thing about being an unpublished writer is that there's always that voice in your head that asks if you're really being a fool. You might just really stink and not know it. You have to have a lot of blind faith in the process. You have to like it so much that you're going to do it anyway.
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I loved Judy Garland. I thought she was such a classic beauty. I thought she was so endearing and charming, and I loved her voice. She was such a dreamer, and I think I was, too - and I am.
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I think it's possible to be multi-rooted, rather like a banyan tree, without being deracinated.
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It seems astonishing to be paid for indulging in pure pleasure. For me to go to Coburg is rather as if a trainspotter was sent for a few weeks to Swindon or a chocoholic asked on holiday by Green and Black.
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Economize in other things if you must, wear threadbare clothes if necessary, but never cheat your body or brain by the quality and quantity of your food. Poor, cheap food which produces low vitality and inferior brain force is the worst kind of economy.
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Hollywood isn't ready for an Indian leading man.
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Touring helped me understand where I needed to be better in my music.
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Deception can cost billions. Think Enron, Madoff, the mortgage crisis. Or in the case of double agents and traitors, like Robert Hanssen or Aldrich Ames, lies can betray our country. They can compromise our security. They can undermine democracy. They can cause the deaths of those that defend us.
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If you don't optimize for the consumer on the Internet, you're dead.
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I think that musicians should never forget about the intimacy of bringing two people together, and the aesthetic transference where you're almost vicariously involved in a romance between other people.
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It's awesome when people even notice that I'm an actor.
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No time you spend writing will be wasted - even if you write something that's bad.
