Claire Messud Quotes

I write because I admire the act of rationalization, of seeking clarity in one's understanding of the complexities of life, and I'm bad at it. I'm slow. Writing, which is an arduous and slow process, proceeds at the same rate as my sloth-like mind.

Writing, for me, is the great organiser. It's while writing that I think most deeply about things.

There is nothing like writing to force you to think and get your thoughts straight.

The highest thing one can do in literature is to succeed in saying that thing which one meant to say. There is nothing better than that - to make the world see your thoughts as you see them.

Generally speaking, an author's style is a faithful copy of his mind. If you would write a lucid style, let there first be light in your own mind; and if you would write a grand style, you ought to have a grand character.

You're talking to someone, to a reader, and you get to express in the way you want to. And you get to play with it. It's kind of like acting, but it's on paper.

Uncommon things must be said in common words, if you would have them to be received in less than a century.

He has the lucidity which is the by-product of a fundamentally sterile mind. He does not have to struggle... with the crowded pulsations of a fecund imagination. On the contrary he is almost devoid of imagination.

I write incessantly, I'm very productive, I write for a dozen publications and blogs and websites. A lot of very hardcore political stuff. I write a weekly feature. I express myself. But when time comes to make music [with the] same absolutely unleashing of total honesty zero inhibitions, it just flows like a stream of conscientiousness because I will not be silenced no matter what my point might be.

Thinking cannot be clear until it has had expression-we must write, or speak, or act our thoughts, or they will remain in half torpid form. Our feelings must have expression, or they will be as clouds, which, till they descend in rain, will never bring up fruit or flowers. So it is with all the inward feelings; expression gives them development-thought is the blossom; language is the opening bud; action the fruit behind it.

Don’t complicate whatever is not complicated.

I can imagine many things, but few clearly.

I enjoy writing. I enjoy communicating and connecting.

My natural tendency is to complicate everything--and then to spray words and ideas onto everything afterwards. I've had to develop the habit of keeping things simple.

If he wrote it, he could get rid of it. He had gotten rid of many things by writing them.

I just loved storytelling. That's what I thought I would end up doing. I thought I would probably go to school and end up writing for a magazine or something.

I've always had a flare for the dramatic. I thought about being an actor and I thought about directing, but writing truly became something I needed to do, just to stay sane. It's my over-pressure valve.

Digressions incontestably are the sunshine; they are the life, the soul of reading.

I believe that only poetry counts ... A great novelist is first of all a great poet.

The story is always better than your ability to write it.

Writing is primarily a sensuous and creative expression of life.

In general I don't like definitions, but 'Minimalist' is a term that means elegance and openness, so I would prefer to be called a Minimalist than something else.

Poetry is another space, like love, where we extend that extra credit to the writer.

Things become clear when there is no escape.

Generally, people who are good at writing letters have no need to write letters. They've got plenty of life to lead inside their own context.