Claire Messud Quotes
My tendencies are much more the Henry James thing, where we sit in silence at the table for three minutes, and our whole lives are changed because of a revelation that never quite happens but almost bubbles to the surface.
Quotes to Explore
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I have definitely worked on that... being efficient and also being smarter with my pressure.
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I liberate minds with my music. That's more important than liberating a few people from apartheid or whatever.
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Banks are there to support businesses that have justifiable needs.
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I think I've been influenced by everything I've ever heard. The first thing I ever heard was my grandma, who was an opera singer. The first song I ever learned was the 'Nessun Dorma' from Puccini's 'Turandot.' My father was a big band singer, so I used to hear him walking around the house singing standards all the time.
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Today painters do not have to go to a subject matter outside of themselves. Most modern painters work from a different source. They work from within.
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Success doesn't necessarily come from breakthrough innovation but from flawless execution. A great strategy alone won't win a game or a battle; the win comes from basic blocking and tackling.
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I like to create a nice environment and let people reveal themselves instead of trying to trick them or surprise them with a hidden question.
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I'm not posh at all. I grew up in Sheffield but never managed to pick up the accent - which was careless because there'd be some cache now in being a northern playwright, but I missed out on that one.
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I have no disciple. I am the servant of the servant of Rama.
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I believe firmly in the efficacy of religion, in its powerful influence on a person's whole life. It helps immeasurably to meet the storms and stress of life and keep you attuned to the Divine inspiration. Without inspiration, we would perish.
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Excess is excrement.
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The way those sons-of-bitches took advantage of me. Warhol is a sadistic faggot.
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Mom and I…we're both very flaky people.
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Fuck a needle, here's a sword, body pierce with this.
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If there are any who believe that immigrants to this country, most of whom have already become British citizens, could be forcibly deported because they are coloured people...then that I must repudiate, absolutely and completely.
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It seems to me that, in every culture, I come across a chapter headed Wisdom. And then I know exactly what is going to follow: Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.
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In the old dramas it was love that had to be sacrificed to painful duty. In the modern instance the sacrifice is at the shrine of what William James called 'the Bitch Goddess, Success.' Love is to be abandoned for the stern pursuit of newspaper notoriety and dollars.
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Existence is illusory and it is eternal.
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Who hasn't sharpened the edge of his soul? When, just as our eyes are opened, we see hate, and just after learning to walk, we are tripped, and just for wanting to love, we are hated, and for no more than touching, we are hurt, which of us hasn't started to arm himself, to make himself sharp, somehow, like a knife, to pay back the hurt?
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There is nothing more to controlling demons than to do good and fear nothing.
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Silence is a protective coating over pain.
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She forced me to become avant-garde and take my clothes off, when all I wanted was to be Tom Jones.
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My mom really instilled in me this idea that parents are not perfect and they make mistakes.
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My tendencies are much more the Henry James thing, where we sit in silence at the table for three minutes, and our whole lives are changed because of a revelation that never quite happens but almost bubbles to the surface.
