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

• I started off singing in church as a child. The sound of voices coming together, that was my first moment of touching something outside of myself.

  

  Florence Welch Florence and the Machine
  • Together
  • Church
  • Myself

• 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

• My idea for 'BoneMan's Daughters' came from the loss of my own daughter when she left home to live with a monster at age 18. I wanted to throttle the man, but she was in love, so all I could do was hope, pray and cry.

  

  Ted Dekker
  • Hope
  • Daughter
  • Idea

• Friendship, if somebody holds out his hand toward you, you've got to reach and take it... There are too many people alone, and if you're lucky enough for somebody to want you as a friend, it's an obligation.

  

  Katharine Hepburn
  • People
  • Alone
  • Friend

• Travel writing is harrowing. You are in paradise, more or less, having to prove it is paradise. It is hard to have a good time trying to figure out a way to say you are having a good time, whether you are having it or not, even in paradise.

  

  Padgett Powell
  • Time
  • Good
  • Writing

• My writing, it's mostly fiction, but I want it to feel intimate and real.

  

  Martine Syms
  • Writing
  • Real

• Even the structure of the atom has been found by the mind. Therefore the mind is subtler than the atom. That which is behind the mind, namely the individual soul, is subtler than the mind.

  

  Ramana Maharshi
  • Mind
  • Soul
  • Individual

• When I was in school I liked math because all the problems had answers. Everything else seemed very subjective.

  

  Lisa Randall
  • School
  • Math

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

  

  Claire Messud
  • Writing
  • Reading