Claire Messud Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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The reason for not getting married was that I just didn't have a partner to get married to. Climbing mountains was more attractive to me than marriage, or other fun things like that.
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Nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation are not utopian ideals. They are critical to global peace and security.
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If I get involved in a charity, I really want to be a part of it. I don't want to just put my name on your pamphlet.
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You can only learn by opening yourself up to engage with different sources of information. How can you learn something if you never see it, read it, or hear it?
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In Sweden, they broadcast the American shows in English with Swedish subtitles, whereas in many European countries they dub them. Watching those shows in English was big for me.
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I felt audiences are happier to take comedy people who play darker people because there's a link between the psychosis of comedy and the psychosis of being a twisted character.
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I'm not a really religious person, but those moments onstage feel like some sort of religious experience because no one holds back, especially 'Stay With Me' when I finish the show. It kind of turns into an anthem when I perform it live, and it feels like there's a lot of love in the room.
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I don't know how you make decisions in your life, but I weigh lots of things, and it's not always the purest of things for why I take a job or do this. I always try to think of the many different factors in my life, and not one is pure greed. One is pure quality of life.
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With freedom comes responsibility, and I can think of no responsibility greater than putting on a U.S military uniform and standing in the gap between an enemy threat and civilian life.
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Women I admired growing up - Debra Winger, Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep - were all beautiful and thin, but not too thin. There are a lot of actresses who are unhealthy-skinny - much, much too skinny. You can't Pilates to that.
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The mind is but too naturally prone to pleasure, but too easily yielded to dissipation.
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I read people; that's one of my strengths. It's not that I can't be fooled, but I'm not fooled often.
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I've lived in New York for a really long time.
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Some campaigns are not worth waging if you can't win; others have to be fought on grounds of principle regardless of the chances for success.
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Children should neither be seen or heard from - ever again.
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Each of the bracelets I wear is from a long trip I've taken. One is from Nicaragua. One is from Nepal. One is from Guatemala. One is from Laos. They don't come off. I walk into a lot of very high-level boardrooms now, and I present to distinguished conferences, but these bracelets remind me of the places I've been and the people I've met.
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Honestly, I find writing to be a very lonely job.
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I thought of learning cinematography, so I assisted a cinematographer for an ad.
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My theory was that what I had to do was make a study of human behavior.
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It was something she didn't want me to do because she thought the rejection would ruin my self-esteem. My father was, like, 'If she wants to try it, let her try it.'
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Build a rocket ship and leave the earth!
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To the truly benevolent mind, indeed, nothing is more satisfactory than to hear of a miser denying himself the necessaries of life a little too far and ridding us of his presence altogether.
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I have a congenital desire to contradict; my whole life is merely a chain of sad and unsuccessful contradictions to heart and mind. When faced with enthusiasm, I am seized by a midwinter freeze, and I suppose that frequent dealings with sluggish phlegmatics would have made a passionate dreamer.
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I wish I were a really good photographer.
