Claire Messud Quotes

If you took my reading and writing out of my head, I don't know who I would be.

Claire Messud

• Writing
• Reading

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Quotes to Explore

• There are really two kinds of optimism. There's the complacent, Pollyanna optimism that says, 'Don't worry - everything will be just fine,' and that allows one to just lay back and do nothing about the problems around you. Then there's what we call dynamic optimism. That's an optimism based on action.

  

  Ramez Naam
  • Action
  • Worry
  • Optimism

• If I wait for the genius to come, it just doesn't arrive.

  

  Ian Fleming
  • Genius
  • Just
  • Wait

• I'm someone who wears their heart on their sleeve.

  

  Victoria Pendleton
  • Heart
  • Someone
  • Sleeve

• 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

• Most of Google's home technologies have failed to catch on in a major way.

  

  Barry Ritholtz
  • Home
  • Most
  • Google

• What makes me happy is the appreciation of people around me.

  

  Nadia Comaneci
  • People
  • Happy
  • Appreciation

• I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle - victorious.

  

  Vince Lombardi
  • Good
  • Great
  • Believe

• I never went to fashion school. I didn't know what a designer was. I knew I had something, but I didn't know what it was. And it could just have easily been nothing.

  

  Ralph Lauren
  • School
  • Know
  • Fashion

• I believe that I'm a hillbilly in my values and in my attitudes, and I don't want to lose that. I think it's possible to maintain a big chunk of that identity so long as you're self-reflective and meaningful about it.

  

  J. D. Vance
  • Believe
  • Long
  • Identity

• I've always had great faith in the Man Upstairs.

  

  Wayne Newton
  • Great
  • Man
  • Faith

• A true heiress is never mean to anyone - except a girl who steals your boyfriend.

  

  Paris Hilton
  • True
  • Girl
  • Mean

• So it's joyful to me, in my 71st year, to be able to be in a play that is absolutely right for my age and my experience, and that is a popular success. What more could you ask as an actor?

  

  Ian Mckellen
  • Experience
  • Age
  • Success

• Your subconscious's goal is to recreate unresolved childhood issues and then hopefully mend them.

  

  Karen Salmansohn
  • Childhood
  • Goal
  • Them

• I used to get a shiver if I thought about holding balloons, because I was scared of floating away.

  

  Fiona Apple
  • Thought
  • Scared
  • Floating

• I'll never get married again, and I always hate to say never to anything, but I will never marry again.

  

  Halle Berry
  • Hate
  • Always
  • Again

• How do you give smart, accomplished, ambitious women the same opportunities as men to reach their goals? What about universal preschool and after-school programs? What about changing the corporate mind-set about the time commitment it takes to move up the ladder? What about having more husbands step up and take the major load?

  

  Gail Collins
  • Up
  • Time
  • Men

• I get even more nervous singing when everyone's fallen silent, but I really try to communicate the meaning of the lyrics, and there's people there listening to that, and if they're moved by it, then I'm moved as well.

  

  Namie Amuro
  • People
  • Singing
  • Listening

• I think I played in Lambeau maybe 14, 15 times. I've played there a lot of times. It's in the teens, double digit. I've had success on that field, won and lost.

  

  Randy Moss
  • Think
  • Success
  • Lost

• I didn't end up some sad, tragic guy singing in a lounge somewhere. I never went out and took big money for nostalgia and became like an oldies act.

  

  David Cassidy
  • Up
  • Money
  • Guy

• I was a bartender for a long time, so I know how to make drinks, but I'm more likely to offer them than to have them. I think this is one of the reasons why I get to live longer than my great-grandmother did, and why I get to produce more writing than she did, and why my marriage isn't in dire straits.

  

  Elizabeth Gilbert
  • Writing
  • Live
  • Marriage

• I was raised in the '50s. I was taught by my father that how I looked was all that mattered, frankly.

  

  Jane Fonda
  • Father

• Yes, my grandfather worked with Thomas Edison on the electric car, and he sold electric cars at the 1900 World's Fair in Paris.

  

  Al Jardine
  • World
  • Car
  • Paris

• Kill! Kill! In the German race there is nothing but evil; not one among the living, not one among the yet unborn but is evil! Follow the precepts of Comrade Stalin. Stamp out the fascist beast once and for all in its lair! Use force and break the racial pride of these German women. Take them as your lawful booty. Kill! As you storm onward, kill, you gallant soldiers of the Red Army.

  

  Ilya Ehrenburg
  • Women
  • Evil
  • Pride

• If you took my reading and writing out of my head, I don't know who I would be.

  

  Claire Messud
  • Writing
  • Reading