Elif Batuman Quotes

When a novelist manages to describe or evoke something you thought or felt, without realizing that other people also found themselves in the same situation and had the same feelings, it creates that same solidarity. Maybe it's better to think of humor not as a tool to express the solidarity, but a kind of by-product. Maybe the realization "I'm not on my own on this one" is always, or often, funny.

The one thing we can all relate to is family, and family has its traumas sometimes. Sometimes things don't go well for people. Sometimes things are tough. So everybody kind of knows someone who's been in this situation before, and I think that's what makes it work.

I think that human beings are often looking for a reason to relate.

Sometimes you think certain details are things that only you would notice, so it's a great thing to feel like you're not by yourself and people understand where you're coming from.

I think something happens only when people find that they are moved with others, find themselves linked or allied in new ways, showing up or speaking out in ways that resonate with one another. That resonating can be very compelling and lead to moving and speaking more emphatically and with sharper focus.

My story is important not because it is mine, God knows, but because if I tell it anything like right, the chances are you will recognize that in many ways it is also yours.

While I wouldn't wish being teased on anyone, I think it eventually leads to a kind of solidarity in adult life. The few people I know who weren't picked on in school are people I find I can't relate to on much more than a surface level. There's a sensitivity that comes with feeling like an outsider at some point in your life.

Because they're my stories, they're my version of events of the past three years. But I really hope people can hear their own stories within the songs and they can become our version of events.

The Big Chill is one of those things that everybody can identify with. Between eight characters, they can pick somebody who's somewhat like them.

I love relatable stories.

I try to communicate in a way that allows people in on what's going on. What's better than references to popular culture?

When you feel totally alone in your thoughts and feelings, there's someone out there who is going through what you went through, even if it's the strangest, weirdest thing you could think of.

People could empathize with other people who had gone through the same experience as they had.

The audience likes a speaker with the same weakness and the same virtues that they themselves have.

It's exhilarating to read something that tells you that people saw something and felt something that you thought was so discreet. When they relate you to some of their own fantasies of who or how some actresses should be in movies. That's really kind of sweet!

I love it when women are like, 'You guys sound like me and my best friend!'

It's cool to be able to relate to people who aren't necessarily from the same way of life as me or don't even maybe know what I'm talking about in some of my songs. It's just cool that music has that ability to do that.

It's one thing to talk to a vet about something, but when you're talking to a fellow rookie going through the same struggles you are, you kind of understand it - and you grow together like that.

The underlying goal of comedy is feeling not-alone.

Any relationship, I'm talking about even with your kids, when you got something they can relate to - both of y'all - it helps.

Family is just the people you care about. We can bond with people that we have nothing in common with, even if it's just for a moment.

I think no matter where you're from, you're going to be laughing about stuff going on around you.

Whatever the reason is, I am happiest when connecting with the human experience. It lets me know that I'm not alone in this world.

We think that this is just our world and we don't know what other people are thinking. Music actually is a phenomenal connector in that respect. It's a special language that defines certain boundaries and connects people in a particular way, a very emotional way, I have found.

Humanity has this need to hear stories because they connect us with other people, they teach us about our own feelings. We feel less lonely when we see other people going through the same things, even if they're fictional characters.