Elif Batuman Quotes

I have no control over what people think, and if I were to spend energy on that, I would be a lifeless, deadened human being.

I don't have big anxieties. I wish I did. I'd be much more interesting.

At the end of the day it's going to hurt your feelings if someone says something mean about you, but I've learned to take a step back and ask myself if it's really going to affect me, if this person who I'm never going to know or meet doesn't like me - and it doesn't.

I'm trying to get a thicker skin. I like to be aware of people's perceptions of me, but when you put it as a priority, as a means to judging your worth, that's when it can be dangerous.

I spent years shaking the damage that comes with being burned by living near someone else's spotlight.

The hardest thing is spending twelve hours a day accommodating the rest of the world, then going home at night and criticizing it. I would be curious about what I'd write if I didn't have to worry about offending.

I want to be well enough to enjoy the things I've made.

If I want to listen to myself as much as I want to listen to Drake or Beyonce, I feel like that's a good sign.

I'm quite an emotional person... I ain't just this Northern brat all the time.

All depression has its roots in self-pity, and all self-pity is rooted in people taking themselves too seriously.

If you think dealing with issues like worthiness and authenticity and vulnerability are not worthwhile because there are more pressing issues, like the bottom line or attendance or standardized test scores, you are sadly, sadly mistaken. It underpins everything.

Sensitiveness is closely allied to egotism; and excessive sensibility is only another name for morbid self-consciousness. The cure for tender sensibilities is to make more of our objects and less of our selves.

My mind has been both my best friend and my worst enemy.

Writing can be a tough gig. Whenever you do something in which you put yourself out there - if that becomes the focus of your life, you miss the point of living. You've really got to get the grounding of family and the things that are important in your life and make that your focus.

There is real beauty in my eyes when I lose my mind.

I have been able to tap into all the negative things that can happen to me throughout my life by numbing myself to the pain so to speak and kind of being able to vent it through my music.

Every person my size has a different life, a different history. Different ways of dealing with it. Just because I'm seemingly O.K. with it, I can't preach how to be O.K. with it. I don't think I still am O.K. with it. There's days when I'm not.

We just cannot worry about ourselves.

These days I settle for feeling only 85 percent sure about most things, most of the time. I believe this is keeping me sane, and I also believe that it's keeping me human. In fact, I'm 85 percent sure of it.

A lot of me is very up, and you have to have light and shade. They are both important and you have to be able to balance them. You have to admit that sadness is part of you and that it enriches you. I use it in my work.

I think it takes a lot of confidence to be comfortable in being vulnerable.

I'm really out of touch with myself emotionally. I've always had a hard time talking about how I feel.

I was so self-critical. I still am, but it's not as bad anymore.

I know that sounds selfish, but you have to look at what it's doing to you personally - are you frustrated because of the way people perceive you, or are you happy enough about the things you've realized about yourself that you can tolerate the way people perceive you?

I was raised not to be afraid to show emotion or imagination.