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Claire Messud

Claire Messud Books

Novelist

The Last Life

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“I needed them, sure, and we can all argue about the moment when the balance tipped and I needed them so much that I would hurt. But you can't pretend they didn't need me too, each in his or her way. They wouldn't necessarily have admitted it - except Reza - but you can't tell me they didn't love me. The heart knows. The body knows. When I was with Sirena, or Reza, or Skandar, the air moved differently between us; time passed differently; words or gestures meant more than themselves. If you've never had this experience-but who has not been visited by love, laughing?-then you can't understand. And if you have, you don't need me to say another word.”

LoveObsession
Book:The Woman Upstairs
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“She knew loss too well, knew that your dear ones never left, that they stayed with you, spoke to you, attempted to console you, but that these ghosts had no arms to hold you, that no one else could hear their jokes. That their love was not enough. And that as more and more of these familiars passed away, the world around you became less and less interesting, less and less real.”

Death Of A Loved One
Book:This Strange Eventful History
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“He wanted, so desperately it lived as an itch beneath his skin, the very itch that drove him to unscrew time and again the metal tops of his various toxic bottles, he wanted to be relieved of the pointless, grueling busywork that consumed his days, had consumed them for decades, that had stolen his best years - so many airplane flights, so many hotel rooms, so many meetings...”

Worklife Balance
Book:This Strange Eventful History
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“The professor husband of a friend of mine has likened children to the insane. I often think of it. He says that children live on the edge of madness, that their behavior, apparently unmotivated, shares the same dream logic as crazy people's. I see what he means, and because I've learned to be patient with children, to tease out the logic that's always somewhere there, and irrefutable once explained.”

PeopleThinkingMeanChildrenDreamShareCrazyMinesHusbandBehaviorLogicMadnessPatientEdgesInsaneI've LearnedProfessorsBe PatientTeaseCrazy PeopleUnmotivated
Book:The Woman Upstairs
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“There questions of wanting to be an artist, and what does that mean, what makes you an artist? Are you an artist if you're in a gallery in New York and not an artist if you're doing it at home? Do you need legitimation to count? If you've been acculturated to believe that you have certain obligations - familial, social, human - if multitasking has been your forte and that's what's been praised and rewarded, where do you find the single-mindedness, the selfishness to do something like art? I think those are questions that arise differently for women and for men.”

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Author:Claire Messud
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“There's a reason why trainspotters are not girls, there's a reason why there's the myth of the slightly autistic male genius, there's a reason why Gertrude Stein believed that her self-presentation was male. One could argue that was Susan Sontag also. The things that we associate with femaleness are not the single-minded, exclusive pursuit of a vocation, whether it be art or anything else. It is not a model that is widespread in our culture, it's not something we think of for women.”

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Author:Claire Messud
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“It's the strangest thing about being human: to know so much, to communicate so much, and yet always to fall so drastically short of clarity, to be, in the end, so isolate and inadequate. Even when people try to say things, they say them poorly or obliquely, or they outright lie, sometimes because they're lying to you, but as often because they're lying to themselves.”

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Author:Claire Messud
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“But do you know this idea of the imaginary homeland? Once you set out from shore on your little boat, once you embark, you'll never truly be at home again. What you've left behind exists only in your memory, and your ideal place becomes some strange imaginary concoction of all you've left behind at every stop.”

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Book:The Woman Upstairs
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“Nobody would know me from my own description of myself; which is why, when called upon (rarely, I grant) to provide an account, I tailor it, I adapt, I try to provide an outline that can, in some way, correlate to the outline that people understand me to have -- that, I suppose, I actually have, at this point. But who I am in my head, very few people really get to see that. Almost none. It's the most precious gift I can give, to bring her out of hiding.”

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Book:The Woman Upstairs
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“I always thought I'd get farther. I'd like to blame the world for what I've failed to do, but the failure - the failure that sometimes washes over me as anger, makes me so angry I could spit - is all mine, in the end. What made my obstacles insurmountable, what consigned me to mediocrity, is me, just me. I thought for so long, forever, that I was strong enough -- or I misunderstood what strength was.”

WorldLongMadeEndsSometimesEnoughStrongForeverMinesBlameAngryObstaclesMediocrityMisunderstoodStrong EnoughSpitInsurmountable
Book:The Woman Upstairs
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“Just because something is invisible doesn't mean it isn't there. At any given time, there are a host of invisibles floating among us. There are clairvoyants to see ghosts; but who sees the invisible emotions, the unrecorded events? Who is that sees love, more evanescent than any ghost, let alone can catch it? Who are you tell me that I don't know what love is?”

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Book:The Woman Upstairs
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“And then, into the fantasy, as into a dream, would come the thought: it's not like this anymore; the world has changed. Just the way, even at that time fully two years after my mother's death, I'd catch myself thinking about her as alive; and would suddenly remember, an admonitory finger of grief upon my breast, that she was gone.”

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Author:Claire Messud
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