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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As in music, when we hear the crescendo building, suddenly if the music stops, we begin to hear the silence as part of the music.
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I think that sexual pleasure and the weird color of the sky after a storm or the stream of tail lights across the bridge or the way silence can thin or thicken before music starts - all these things have to be harnessed by the political. The libidinal has to be harnessed by the political.
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I have been a Republican, and I've worked in Republican circles for so long, and I know that there are really smart, good policy ideas that are grounded in conservative ideology that could be persuasive for women, especially in an election where no one was really excited about either candidate.
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Neither way is better. / Both ways are necessary. / It is also necessary / To make a choice between them.
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The hegemonic powers also used religion and nationalism to preserve their supremacy. In all parts of Kurdistan, Islam is a state religion used as a tool for controlling the population. Even if these regimes embrace secularism, the entanglement of political and religious institutions is obvious.
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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.
