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Top Elif Batuman Quotes

Browse top 13 most favorite famous quotes and sayings by Elif Batuman.

Favorite Elif Batuman Quotes

1. "I learned many interesting things from Delia: for example, that she and Gulya had both married alcoholics, but Delia's alcoholic had taken all her money, whereas Gulya had managed her alcoholic well and taken all his money." ~ Elif Batuman
2. "A few times I saw a chicken walking around importantly, like some kind of a regional manager." ~ Elif Batuman
3. "Persian, Dilorom told me, had only one word for crying, whereas Old Uzbek had one hundred. Old Uzbek had words for wanting to cry and not being able to, for being caused to sob by something, for loudly crying like thunder in the clouds, for crying in gasps, for weeping inwardly or secretly, for crying ceaselessly in a high voice, for crying in hiccups, and for crying while uttering the sound 'hay hay." ~ Elif Batuman
4. "I spent the next two weeks flopped on my grandmother's super-bourgeois rose-colored velvet sofa, consuming massive quantites of grapes, reading obsessively." ~ Elif Batuman
5. "...as for unhappy families, star-crossed lovers, and exiled heroes, they are simply universal." ~ Elif Batuman
6. "Each work of criticism is supposed to build on the body of work, to increase the total sum of human understanding. It's not like filling your house with more and more beautiful wicker baskets. It's supposed to be cumulative - it believes in progress." ~ Elif Batuman
7. "The anecdote appears in Théophile Gautier's 1859 biography of Balzac. I wondered if it could be shown that Babel had read Gautier. Then I wondered whether there was anything to eat at home. There wasn't. I got in my car and was driving down El Camino Real when my cell phone started ringing." ~ Elif Batuman
8. "At the first such gathering, I politely sat with them for half an hour, drank some vodka, and even recited a toast about how great it was that Gulya had such great friends. This proved to be a tactical error, since afterward Gulya wanted me to drink vodka and recite toasts with them every night, which was not compatible with my program of study of the great Uzbek language." ~ Elif Batuman
9. "First my copy was sent back to me with a note: "Please call ASAP regarding portrayal of Cossacks as primitive monsters." It turned out that my copy was lacking in cultural sensitivity toward Cossacks. I tried to explain that, far from calling Cossacks primitive monsters, I was merely suggesting that others had considered Cossacks to be primitive monsters. The coordinator, however, said that this was my mistake: others didn't consider Cossacks to be primitive monsters; in fact, "Cossacks have a rather romantic image."I considered quoting to her the entry for Cossack in Flaubert's Dictionary of Received ideas: "Eats tallow candles"; but then the burden of proof would still be on me to show that tallow candles are a primitive form of nourishment. Instead I adopted the line that the likelihood of any Cossacks actually attending the exhibit was very slim. But the editor said this wasn't the point, "and anyway you never know in California." ~ Elif Batuman
10. "I don't know if I ended up siding with the academics just because I happened to end up in graduate school, or if I ended up in graduate school because I already secretly sided with the academics. In any case, I stopped believing that "theory" had the power to ruin literature for anyone, or that it was possible to compromise something you loved by studying it. Was love really such a tenuous thing? Wasn't the point of love that it made you want to learn more, to immerse yourself, to become possessed?" ~ Elif Batuman
11. "What does literature do better than anything else? It provides a detailed representation of the inner experience of being alive in a given time and place." ~ Elif Batuman
12. "If I could start over today, I would choose literature again. If the answers exist in the world or in the universe, I still think that's where we're going to find them." ~ Elif Batuman
13. "You just go around getting hung up on all the least convenient things--and if the only obstacle in your way is a little extra work, then that's the wonderful gift right there." ~ Elif Batuman

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Today's Quote

I see his longing and frustration. "It hurts too much." His face contorts."Everything we won't have."
Author: Angela Morrison

What Did Elif Batuman Talk About?

Thin
Here
Lit
Wit
Ring
Per
Use
Hen
End
Era
Ear
Literature
Star
Lie
Read
Con

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