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.”

“I felt grateful to Ataturk that my parents were so well educated, that they weren't held back by superstition or religion, that they were true scientists who taught me how to read when I was three and never doubted that I could become a writer.”

“Most Americans have probably heard the song 'Santa Claus Is Coming to Town' about a billion times in the supermarket alone.”

“When in doubt, it is better to do the less conservative thing and to err on the side of the more colorful, possibly terrible mistake. That comes from thinking of yourself as a writer.”

“Being in a heterosexual relationship for a woman is always implicitly a little bit humiliating.”

“People don't become writers because they love having spontaneous, real-world interactions with living people as bodies with clothes in time.”

“'Awkward' implies both solidarity and implication. Nobody is exempt.”

“If, for a moment, it seemed that September 11th could be identified with Iraq, the illusion was short-lived.”

“There's definitely a culture of Russian literature in Turkey. And in the U.S. too, to an extent - especially Dostoevsky.”

“Even when I was very small, my mother treated me like a great novelist. She was like: 'Oh, I'm sitting at the breakfast table with Flaubert,' and would say, if she burned some food or was late arriving, 'Don't put this in your novel!'”

“I think it is true that when we're older, we realize the way that people act is... you know, everyone's kind of talking off the cuff, and everyone's, you know, spitballing sometimes.”

“My family is not only not religious, but my parents are both - they're secularists. My father is actually an atheist and feels very strongly about it.”

“When you started looking at the life of Tolstoy, there was so much passion and anger and drama surrounding him.”

“A lot of what I write is very personal.”

“The Himalayan glaciers, China's trade surplus, Olympic ice hockey - the world is full of pressing subjects that people never consult me about.”

“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.”

“Imagination is really dependent on memory and observation, these things that we think of as part of nonfiction writing, actually.”

“Every time a meteor comes close to the earth, we all think about the end of the world - but our internal soundtrack doesn't turn off. We're also thinking about pizza or passing a slow tractor or making a turn, and for a magical instant, our lives seem to be in conversation with the stars.”

“'Gone Girl' is as much about the near impossibility of being a good husband as it is about the anguish of being a good wife.”

“My family is very feminist, and they consider that Islam is not a super feminist religion, which I know people can argue about. But that's - anyway that's how I was brought up, so it would be odd for me to suddenly just up and start wearing a headscarf.”