Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Elif Batuman

Quote by Elif Batuman

“Now that I'm almost forty, I look back at some of the decisions I made when I was younger - decisions that I thought of as courageous, or generous, or otherwise befitting a writer; befitting someone who had taken it as their life's goal to understand the human condition - and I wish I could go back in time and be like, "Hey, you don't actually have to do that - you're allowed to look out for yourself a little bit."”

Quote by Elif Batuman

Create image

Author

Elif Batuman
Elif Batuman

Elif Batuman is a Turkish-American author born in 1977. Her works are known for their humor and depth, primarily exploring themes of personal identity, cultural differences, and the experience of growing up. Her debut novel, 'The Possessed', received widespread acclaim. more

You May Also Like

“There's an amazing line in Marcus Aurelius: "The healthy eye ought to see all visible things and not to say, I wish for green things; for this is the condition of a diseased eye." Maybe green is your favorite color - but if you saw everything as green, that wouldn't be a blessing, it would be an eye disease. By the same token, if there was no heartbreak, and everything happened exactly as you want - it would be a less beautiful and meaningful story than the actual story, where you're a part of a huge complicated mysterious whole.”

EyeBeautifulWishHealthyBlessingComplicatedMeaningfulMysteriousYour Favorite
Author:Elif Batuman
Create image

“The plot is very important because writers have to play fair with their readers, but no one would care about the plot if the character work wasn't there. So, basically every book I work on starts with me thinking not just about the bad thing that's going to happen, but how that bad thing is going to ripple through the community, the family of the victim, and the lives of the investigators. I am keenly aware when I'm working that the crimes I am writing about have happened to real people. I take that very seriously.”

PeopleThinkingWritingImportantBookRealCharacterCareCommunityCrimeVictimRipple
Author:Karin Slaughter
Create image

“First and foremost, I want people to have a good read, because I want everything I write to entertain people. There are always different layers to the story, though, so if you want to think about social justice, or sexism or racism or homophobia, or really drill down into why the world is a better place when the police force looks like the people they are policing, then that's there, too.”

PeopleThinkingWorldWritingDifferentJusticeRacismPoliceSocial JusticeSexismHomophobia
Author:Karin Slaughter
Create image