I am a great admirer of Henry Jeffreys and have been eagerly awaiting his booze and empire book for many years! Elif Batuman More Quotes by Elif Batuman More Quotes From Elif Batuman For a Nabokov fan, paging through 'Fine Lines,' which includes a critical introduction and several essayistic evaluations of Nabokov's scientific oeuvre, can feel a bit like reading the second half of 'Pale Fire': one is confronted by a content-rich, almost dementedly tangential commentary on an increasingly inscrutable work. Elif Batuman feel reading fire work When I read that nobody should ever feel ashamed to be alone or to be in a crowd, I realized that I often felt ashamed of both of those things. Elif Batuman nobody alone feel things Read enough about the dung beetle, and a picture of its character emerges: patient, optimistic, uncomplaining. Elif Batuman picture patient enough character For much of my adult life, I believed, inaccurately, that I knew the story of Charles Dickens's 'A Christmas Carol' - that I remembered it from childhood. Elif Batuman story childhood christmas life At the beginning of 'A Christmas Carol,' Scrooge embodies one of the central tenets of depression: that one has always been this way - and always will be. Elif Batuman beginning christmas depression way My parents were born into a secular country. They met in Turkey's top medical school, moved to America in the nineteen-seventies, and became researchers and professors. Elif Batuman parents medical country school