Ellen

“Anyway, I didn’t want to be “nurtured” in an “environment” that was set up for me to “excel.” I wanted to do whatever was the most real and rigorous.”
― Elif Batuman, Either/Or

“Of course, you couldn’t have a party without alcohol; I understood this now. I understood the reason. The reason was that people were intolerable.”
― Elif Batuman, Either/Or

“I had always been in love with someone. It was the only thing that made it feasible to live that way, getting up at six and remaining conscious until late at night. It was like religion for medieval people. It gave you energy to face injustice, powerlessness, and drudgery.

The guys I was in love with always ignored me, but were never unkind. There was something abstract and gentle about the feeling of being ignored, a feeling of being spared, an impossibility of anything happening, which was consonant with my understanding of love.

In theory, of course, I knew love could be reciprocated. It was something that happened, often, to other people. But I was unlike other people in so many ways.”
― Elif Batuman, Either/Or

“The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.”
― James Baldwin