Obstruction can be caused by so many factors - perfectionism, distraction, faltering confidence, external demands and pressures. At some point, of course, you've got to push through it all if you're to write, and if you don't, or can't, you're sunk. Claire Messud More Quotes by Claire Messud More Quotes From Claire Messud Just because something is invisible doesn't mean it isn't there. At any given time, there are a host of invisibles floating among us. There are clairvoyants to see ghosts; but who sees the invisible emotions, the unrecorded events? Who is that sees love, more evanescent than any ghost, let alone can catch it? Who are you tell me that I don't know what love is? Claire Messud eventslove-ismean I always thought I'd get farther. I'd like to blame the world for what I've failed to do, but the failure - the failure that sometimes washes over me as anger, makes me so angry I could spit - is all mine, in the end. What made my obstacles insurmountable, what consigned me to mediocrity, is me, just me. I thought for so long, forever, that I was strong enough -- or I misunderstood what strength was. Claire Messud strongforeverlong The more accurately one can illuminate a particular human experience, the better the work of art. Claire Messud human-experiencehumansart The professor husband of a friend of mine has likened children to the insane. I often think of it. He says that children live on the edge of madness, that their behavior, apparently unmotivated, shares the same dream logic as crazy people's. I see what he means, and because I've learned to be patient with children, to tease out the logic that's always somewhere there, and irrefutable once explained. Claire Messud husbanddreamchildren I’m not a writing group member, not a joiner in that way. I don’t seek a wide swath of feedback. Claire Messud groupswritingway Yes, writing is essential to me. It's my way of living in the world. Claire Messud essentialswritingworld I wanted to write a voice that for me, as a reader, had been missing from the chorus: the voice of an angry woman. Claire Messud voicemissingwriting Does Being Happy simply Create More Time, in the way that Being Sad, as we all know, slows time and thickens it, like cornstarch in a sauce?). Claire Messud being-sadsaucedoe We live in a funny time, a funny era, when desire, to be adult desire, has to be conceived as sexual. And that didn't used to be the case. Sexuality is a social construction as much as anything else and I think the realities of sexuality don't always fit into the social constructions that we have, and we live in a goal-oriented time - on all fronts. Claire Messud desirerealitythinking If I had to summarize, most broadly, my concerns as a writer, I'd say the question 'How then must we live?' is at the heart of it, for me. Claire Messud concernifsheart I believe that, in an ideal world, writers would feel free to write what matters to them without having to consider success, failure, the market, etc. Claire Messud what-matterswritingbelieve The apartment was entirely, was only, for her: a wall of books, both read and unread, all of them dear to her not only in themselves, their tender spines, but in the moments or periods they evoked… Her self, then, was represented in her books; her times in her records; and the rest of the room she thought of as a pure, blank slate. Claire Messud wallselfbook Popular success is a wonderful gift if it happens, but like money, it's not the motivation. The effort to create a work of art that is true and potentially lasting, that is the very best work of art you can create at that point in your life - a book that may only reach or move a few people but will seem to people somehow transformative. That's the ideal; that's always the motivation. Claire Messud motivationartmoving But do you know this idea of the imaginary homeland? Once you set out from shore on your little boat, once you embark, you'll never truly be at home again. What you've left behind exists only in your memory, and your ideal place becomes some strange imaginary concoction of all you've left behind at every stop. Claire Messud homememoriesideas Life's funny. You have to find a way to keep going, to keep laughing, even after you realize that none of your dreams will come true. When you realize that, there's still so much of a life to get through. Claire Messud dreamlaughingway And then, into the fantasy, as into a dream, would come the thought: it's not like this anymore; the world has changed. Just the way, even at that time fully two years after my mother's death, I'd catch myself thinking about her as alive; and would suddenly remember, an admonitory finger of grief upon my breast, that she was gone. Claire Messud griefmotherdream I've always felt that if a project seems easy, or even attainable, why pursue it? I'll always find the hardest path. Claire Messud patheasy Maybe that, really, is as good a definition as any of an artist in the world: a ruthless person. Claire Messud definitionsartistworld If you’re reading to find friends, you’re in deep trouble. Claire Messud readingtroubleifs To my mind, Guernica is the most important online intellectual and literary journal in America today. Claire Messud intellectualmindamerica
