“Henry James and Edith Wharton are huge for me because they gave me a w...” — Claire Messud Quote

“Henry James and Edith Wharton are huge for me because they gave me a way to understand America while still respecting the European backgrounds of my relatives.”

“In the world I've lived in, gay marriage, for example, seems completely logical. And yet there are many people who don't live in that world.”

“I was in my senior year of high school when I read 'Notes From Underground' by Dostoyevsky, and it was an exhilarating discovery. I hadn't known up until that moment that fiction could be like that. Fiction could say these things, could be unseemly, could be unsettling and distressing in that particular way, that immediate and urgent way.”

“Having a family should be something people of all backgrounds can rally behind.”

“I think our go-to comfort foods reveal so much about our backgrounds.”

“I find discussing mathematics with colleagues of different backgrounds one of the most productive ways of making progress.”