We are all unappealing. It is just a matter of how much we let people see it. Claire Messud Read Quote
Especially since having children, a lot of the time if you ask me, ‘Have you read that book?’ the answer would be ‘not personally.’ Claire Messud Read Quote
Obama was the first president whose biography makes sense to me. He can walk into a room anywhere and find common ground with any person. Claire Messud Read Quote
For me, the ages between 9 and 12 were great because it was before you wore any masks, and you had some autonomy in the world. You had some freedom, and you felt you had unlimited ambition. It’s when you thought, ‘I’m going to write plays. I’m going to be president. I’m going to do this; I’m going to do that.’ And then it all falls apart. Claire Messud Read Quote
For me, it was a formative experience reading Eliot when I was younger. ‘The Waste Land,’ in particular. Claire Messud Read Quote
Things we write down are the fragments shored against our ruins. They outlast us, these scraps of words on paper. Like the detritus from the tsunami washing up on the other side of the ocean, writing is what can be salvaged. Claire Messud Read Quote
We think that – as kids, you know – that kids make up stories and live in a sort of fictional place, but that, as grown-ups, we tell the truth and live in fact. But, of course, the reality is we take the facts that we know, and then we fill in all the blanks. Claire Messud Read Quote
The fictional narratives that television, film, and the news provide for girls and young women are appalling. Claire Messud Read Quote
