Claire Messud Quotes

There is an element in some of my work that has to do with being an outsider, feeling like not part of the dominant culture.

I feel like a member of any group comprised of outsiders.

I've always - and not always happily - considered myself an outsider. Certainly at Fettes. And then the Scots are always outsiders in England. They are always putting you in your place in one way or another, and there is this pretty rigid class hierarchy.

I think you only really feel like an outsider if you've been an insider.

I have spent a lot of years on the outside looking in.

If you feel like an outsider, you tend to observe things a lot more.

Being an outsider means not being heard, not having a voice. It means being treated as a second-class citizen, being diminished in the eyes of others. We have all felt this way at one time or another, but some feel it more consistently. Unfortunately, our schools often do not embrace the talents of many of their occupants.

I like being an outsider. It is better in France on the outside.

I was always the new kid, and I got to know the language and the politics of being on the outside, looking in. Never being in the clique - always being a student of the clique, a subversive, and I could look around and identify the other guys who were excluded.

To be the outsider is actually a great thing in England.

I know what it feels like to be an outsider.

I have been an outsider in journalism and in the academy, because I never fully belonged to any of them.

I do feel like I'm not entirely an insider.

Most people in their lives do feel like they are outsiders at some point.

I was taunted because I was different.

I was always different from people. Especially being from Kentucky, I always got made fun of.

I don't feel like I've ever been in mainstream society.

I'm an outsider.

We Greeks are the blacks of Europe.

I feel like an outsider, and I always will feel like one. I've always felt that I wasn't a member of any particular group.

What characterizes a member of a minority group is that he is forced to see himself as both exceptional and insignificant, marvelous and awful, good and evil.

Never, ever, have I felt really accepted in Hollywood.

If I feel any marginalisation, it's because the things that concern me aren't so important to other people.

When we talk about communities, we seldom discuss the margins. But for every person nestled comfortably in the bosom of a community, there is someone else on the outskirts, feeling ambivalent. Ambiguous. Excluded. Unwilling or unable to come more fully into the fold.

I think if you are an outsider then you are an outsider always.