Claire Messud

In making up stories, as in reading stories, I could create a contained world in which an experience is shared in its entirety. ”

For those of us whose thoughts digress; for whom unexpected juxtapositions are exhilarating rather than tiresome; who aim, if always inadequately, to convey life's experience in some semblance of its complexity - for such writers, the semi-colon is invaluable. ”

I digress a lot - it's how I experience the world. I would like to write in a way that will convey that to the reader, but also I need clarity. ”

I feel as though there are things that I'm trying to do - you know, capturing truthfully some aspect of human experience - and I'm trying really hard not to be fake. And in writing, as in life, it's harder than you think. ”

When you move around a lot, there are little bits of you from everywhere. I mean, my father's French, and I speak French, and there's a kind of struggle in me that says, 'I'd like to be French.' But I've never been fully part of that culture, that role. ”

We read to find life, in all its possibilities. ”

I have said it somewhere - our literary lived lives are as important as our literally lived lives. ”

I'm a big believer in the complex realities of young people's lives. ”

If you live in a family or have five roommates, there's some sort of reality check, but when you live alone, there's a lot more leeway for your fantasy life to be more and more a part of your everyday life. ”

My tendencies are much more the Henry James thing, where we sit in silence at the table for three minutes, and our whole lives are changed because of a revelation that never quite happens but almost bubbles to the surface. ”