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" My husband had a stalker, briefly. "
Claire Messud
Husband
Had
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" Place and displacement have always been central for me. A type of insecurity goes with that: you are always following the cues, like learning the dance steps when the dance is already under way. "
Claire Messud
Insecurity
Learning
Me
" If I had to summarize, most broadly, my concerns as a writer, I'd say the question 'How then must we live?' is at the heart of it, for me. "
Claire Messud
Heart
Live
Me
" I wish I were a really good photographer. "
Claire Messud
Good
Really
Wish
" I always say to my students, 'If you can do anything other than writing and be happy, then you should.' "
Claire Messud
Writing
Say
Than
" If you know what you're doing, it's not interesting. It has to be a challenge; it has to seem impossible and urgent to do it. And then you do it. "
Claire Messud
Challenge
Impossible
Interesting
" It's still unacceptable for women to have negative emotions, especially anger, and I was trying to write against that. "
Claire Messud
Trying
Anger
Women
" In a globalised world, so many of us move around so much. You lose things, but you also gain things - or hope to gain them. "
Claire Messud
Move
Lose
Hope
" Because we moved so much, I was always having to adapt and work out the lay of the land. So I felt envious of those who did not have to try. "
Claire Messud
Because
Work
Try
" You can't make a character do something they wouldn't do. "
Claire Messud
Make
Something
You
" We read to find life, in all its possibilities. "
Claire Messud
Find
Life
Possibilities
" As a reader since very early, I have found myself drawn to rants. "
Claire Messud
Early
Very
Drawn
" If you're rich, you can leave a library, a building, or a hospital wing. But writing leaves behind a visceral sense of what it was like to be alive on the planet in a particular time. Writing tells us what it meant for someone to be human. "
Claire Messud
Library
Building
Rich
" I'm a different person in French. I'm a different person in New York. I'm a different person in Canada. "
Claire Messud
Canada
Different
New
" In the world I've lived in, gay marriage, for example, seems completely logical. And yet there are many people who don't live in that world. "
Claire Messud
Gay
Marriage
World
" There's this moment when kids realize that they have power and that they can use it. "
Claire Messud
Realize
Kids
Moment
" We think that we know people from this constellation of points: 'I know that story. I know that girl. I've heard that story a thousand times.' But actually, you never know that story. "
Claire Messud
Know
Think
Story
" As any of us approaches middle age, we inevitably come up against our limitations: the realization that certain dearly-held fantasies may not be realized; that circumstances have thwarted us; that even with intention and will we may not be able to set our ship back on the course we'd planned. "
Claire Messud
Circumstances
Ship
Back
" Sometimes I think about all the hours spent making lunches, carting kids from one place to another, being up in the middle of the night taking temperatures. People who haven't had to do that have, say, read every last book up there from cover to cover and probably remember it. There are trade-offs. But more life is more life. "
Claire Messud
Place
Life
Book
" The way I saw the world as a child was not wrong. And it's okay to see the world that way. If it doesn't hurt anybody. "
Claire Messud
Way
See
Okay
" Carmiel Banasky, a writer like no other, is a talent to watch. "
Claire Messud
Other
Writer
Watch
" I grew up on British fiction, and I write perhaps more directly out of that tradition. "
Claire Messud
More
Write
British
" 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. "
Claire Messud
Never
Bubbles
Three
" If you live in a family or have five roommates, there's some sort of reality check, but when you live alone, there's a lot more leeway for your fantasy life to be more and more a part of your everyday life. "
Claire Messud
Live
You
Alone
" If you're reading to find friends, you're in deep trouble. "
Claire Messud
Deep
Reading
Friends
" Rushing around can be a pointless diversion from actually living your life. "
Claire Messud
Life
Your
Rushing
" In midlife, I feel that my tendency to acquire books is rather like someone smoking two packs a day: it's a terrible vice that I wish I could shuck. "
Claire Messud
Someone
Day
Feel
" The fictional narratives that television, film, and the news provide for girls and young women are appalling. "
Claire Messud
Women
Young
News
" Obstruction can be caused by so many factors - perfectionism, distraction, faltering confidence, external demands and pressures. At some point, of course, you've got to push through it all if you're to write, and if you don't, or can't, you're sunk. "
Claire Messud
Distraction
You
Push
" As a kid, I used to tell all these stories. I remember meeting a childhood friend, and we were talking. We remembered that I had made up this story about going to Mars. And she looked at me and said, 'I didn't sleep for a week after that!' "
Claire Messud
Sleep
Childhood
Friend
" 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
Me
Find
Person