Anyway, these books I love, they’re all books by men—every last one of them. Because if it’s unseemly and possibly dangerous for a man to be angry, i…

- 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 -- v…

- Claire Messud

Life's funny. You have to find a way to keep going, to keep laughing, even after you realize that none of your dreams will come true. When you realiz…

- Claire Messud

Geniuses have the shortest biographies.

- 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 anot…

- Claire Messud

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

- Claire Messud

If you’re reading to find friends, you’re in deep trouble. We read to find life, in all its possibilities. The relevant question isn’t ‘Is this a pot…

- Claire Messud

That's so her. You know, torn between Big Ideas and a party. She's always been that way.

- Claire Messud

Does Being Happy simply Create More Time, in the way that Being Sad, as we all know, slows time and thickens it, like cornstarch in a sauce?).

- Claire Messud