Claire Messud Quotes
I'm not a writing group member, not a joiner in that way. I don't seek a wide swath of feedback.
Quotes to Explore
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If we focus on our health, including our inner health, our self-esteem, and how we look at ourselves and our confidence level, we'll tend to be healthier people anyway, we'll tend to make better choices for our lives, for our bodies, we'll always be trying to learn more, and get better as time goes on.
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Life consists in what a man is thinking of all day.
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The Japanese version comes with a translation, but that's different from the lyrics, so people could look things up and find a translation of their own if they're interested.
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I made sacrifices willingly; it was what I did best.
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I don't really desire things. I prefer to spend my money on experiences, on meals or travel.
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It would have shown people that I was prepared to do that kind of work, although I find myself in a position now where I don't really need to and I could pick and choose the kind of characters I'd like to do.
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I don't take pleasure in anyone's demise, really.
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My schedule is so crazy.
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Many people think fairy tales and retellings of fairy tales are only for children, but I'm not the only writer to take an old tale and retell it for a sophisticated adult audience.
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The Gorillaz cartoons seem more real to me than the actual people on TV. Because at least you know that there's some intelligence behind the cartoons, and there's a lot of work that's gone into it, so it can't all be just a lie.
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Improv as an actor makes you present in the moment. You listen, you're attentive. You're not acting so much as reacting, which is what you're doing in life all the time.
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We do violence to the consciousness of a past age when we divide what was indivisible to it: the one sacred truth of the Christian creed.
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Were women meant to do everything - work and have babies?
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The woman who purposely destroys her unborn child is guilty of murder. With us there is no nice enquiry as to its being formed or unformed.
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It's a shallow life that doesn't give a person a few scars.
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I didn't grow up with a mother, so I don't have that resource to rely on and ask a million questions.
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I constantly work at maintaining balance. For me, my family comes first. If my family is taken care of, then everything else usually falls into place.
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If you've never seen an elephant ski, you've never been on acid.
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Given the devaluation of literature and of the study of foreign languages per se in the United States, as well as the preponderance of theory over text in graduate literature studies, creative writing programs keep literature courses populated.
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Christianity becomes just a set of things you believe in. It's almost an intellectual kind of abstract issue.
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There's a real difference now in what you can get out of film and the rise of digital platforms.
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One thing that keeps me awake at night: I am a mother and, I have to confess with great delight, a grandmother of five girls, which gives me great hope for the future - girl power! Can I say that without alienating all of the men?
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I start with an idea that is no more than a paragraph long, and expand it slowly into an outline. But I'm always surprised by the directions things take when I actually start writing.
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I'm not a writing group member, not a joiner in that way. I don't seek a wide swath of feedback.
