Claire Messud
Claire Messud
Claire Messudis an American novelist and literature and creative writing professor. She is best known as the author of the novel The Emperor's Children...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
CountryUnited States of America
mother love-you thinking
When you are the woman upstairs, nobody thinks of you first. Nobody calls you before anyone else, or sends you the first postcard. Once your mother dies, nobody loves you “best of all.” It's a small thing, you might think, and maybe it depends on your temperament, maybe for some people it's a small thing, but for me [...]
book should measuring
I measure my life out in books." "You should be measuring your life by living. Correction: you shouldn't be measuring your life. What's the point?
possibility
We read to find life, in all its possibilities.
wall book self
The apartment was entirely, was only, for her: a wall of books, both read and unread, all of them dear to her not only in themselves, their tender spines, but in the moments or periods they evoked… Her self, then, was represented in her books; her times in her records; and the rest of the room she thought of as a pure, blank slate.
memories home ideas
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.
believe writing what-matters
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.