Claire Messud Quotes

I grew up on British fiction, and I write perhaps more directly out of that tradition.

Claire Messud

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• There are recurring elements in popularized fairy tales, such as absent parents, some sort of struggle, a transformation, and a marriage. If you look at a range of stories, you find many stories about marriage, sexual initiation, abandonment. The plots often revolve around what to me seem to be elemental fears and desires.

  

  Kate Bernheimer
  • Parents
  • Marriage
  • Struggle

• I'm a capitalist but one who is smallist and localist, and who favours businesses where owners are still in charge.

  

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb
  • Where
  • Still
  • Charge

• I shouldn't say this, but I always love the sidekicks. I want to do a leading-lady role in a film - absolutely. But I find that a lot of times I get attracted to the sidekick role. They stand out a little more because they're quirkier, they're funnier, they're crazier.

  

  Malin Akerman
  • Role
  • Lady
  • Attracted

• When I show a film at a festival, I am showing myself. Everything is at stake for me.

  

  Lars von Trier
  • Film
  • Festival
  • Showing

• A new untruth is better than an old truth.

  

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
  • Truth
  • Better
  • Truth Is

• There was just a lot of comedy on the TV in the house, and my parents are both very funny.

  

  Kate McKinnon
  • House
  • Parents
  • Funny

• Are we to paint what's on the face, what's inside the face, or what's behind it?

  

  Pablo Picasso
  • Face
  • Paint
  • Inside

• Never have I found the limits of the photographic potential. Every horizon, upon being reached, reveals another beckoning in the distance. Always, I am on the threshold.

  

  W. Eugene Smith
  • Distance
  • Potential
  • Horizon

• I've matured since joining United, on and off the field.

  

  Wayne Rooney
  • Field
  • United
  • Off

• Everybody has to agree that the best thing we can do to start reducing the deficit in this country is to put people back to work.

  

  Ted Deutch
  • People
  • Work
  • Country

• One who works for his own profit is likely to work hard. One who works for the use of others, without profit to himself, is likely not to work any harder than he must.

  

  B. Carroll Reece
  • Work
  • Own
  • Work Hard

• I've never been the type of person to jump up and throw out the album without it being what it's supposed to be.

  

  Raekwon
  • Up
  • Never
  • Jump

• I don't like books that play to the gallery, but I've become more concerned with telling a story as clearly and engagingly as I can.

  

  Salman Rushdie
  • Play
  • Like
  • Story

• I am actually one of those who took President Obama at his word when he first ran - that he would get us out of ill-advised wars, that he would do something about health care costs, and that he would protect civil liberties. Like many Americans, I was disappointed.

  

  Gary Johnson
  • Health
  • Disappointed
  • Wars

• Most big popcorn movies are 'bad guy does something to good guy, good guy gets revenge on bad guy, sets the world right, and moves on.' And 'Ender's Game' is just not that simple, so it's an exciting challenge. It's a little terrifying, and let's see how audiences respond.

  

  Gavin Hood
  • World
  • Good
  • Bad

• The way I write is that I'll actually have a conversation out loud with myself. In a weird way, I just kind of get schizophrenic and play two characters.

  

  Zach Braff
  • Myself
  • Weird
  • Write

• The shoes and the eyes are windows to a woman's spirit.

  

  Edgardo Osorio
  • Eyes
  • Woman
  • Shoes

• My argument is simple, which is, that for several thousand years in Western civilization, marriage has been the union of one man and one woman. Research is overwhelming that children need mothers and fathers.

  

  Gary Bauer
  • Children
  • Man
  • Simple

• It's been so long since I made love, I can't even remember who gets tied up.

  

  Joan Rivers
  • Up
  • Long
  • Remember

• I look up to the older generation of men - Arthur Scargill, Tony Benn, Jeremy Corbyn - but my main role model has been my step-granddad Jim. He's brilliant, very political, quite eccentric.

  

  Maxine Peake
  • Up
  • Men
  • Political

• I've always been drawn to the Edwardian period in England. To me, it seems like such a fascinating time, when the British Empire was at the height of its powers and the strict mores of the Victorian age were dissipating into the decadence of King Edward's reign.

  

  Kevin Kwan
  • Time
  • Age
  • Period

• I love some films with very silent characters, people who don't speak, but I wouldn't be able to do that.

  

  Arnaud Desplechin
  • People

• I grew up on British fiction, and I write perhaps more directly out of that tradition.

  

  Claire Messud
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