Claire Messud quotes

The more accurately one can illuminate a particular human experience, the better the work of art. (Claire Messud)

I believe that, in an ideal world, writers would feel free to write what matters to them without having to consider success, failure, the market, etc.

Claire Messud

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

Above all, in my anger, I was sad. Isn't that always the way, that at the heart of the fire is a frozen kernel of sorrow that the fire is trying -- valiantly, fruitlessly -- to eradicate.

Claire Messud

I've discovered over the years that the simplest explanation is almost always the right one; and that hunger of one kind or another - desire, by another name - is the source of almost every sorrow.

Claire Messud

We read to find life, in all its possibilities.

Claire Messud

I'm not a writing group member, not a joiner in that way. I don't seek a wide swath of feedback.

Claire Messud

I wanted to write a voice that for me, as a reader, had been missing from the chorus: the voice of an angry woman.

Claire Messud

Yes, writing is essential to me. It's my way of living in the world.

Claire Messud

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

I always say to my students, 'If you can do anything other than writing and be happy, then you should.' (Claire Messud)

If you're reading to find friends, you're in deep trouble.

Claire Messud

The effort to create a work of art that is true and potentially lasting, that is the very best work of art you can create at that point in your life - a book that may only reach or move a few people but will seem to those people somehow transformative. That's the ideal; that's always the motivation.

Claire Messud

An abiding preoccupation for me is how much of our lives are invisible and unknown by other people, like the Chekhov story 'The Lady With the Little Dog.'

Claire Messud

Claire Messud

Claire Messud - Image

Photo: Larry D. Moore, CC BY 4.0

Occupation: American Novelist
Born: October 8, 1966
Quotes count: 14

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