We live in a culture that wants to put a redemptive face on everything, so anger doesn't sit well with any of us. But I think women's anger sits less well than anything else. Women's anger is very scary to people, and to no one more than other women who think: Oh, goodness, well, if I let the lid off, where would we be?
Claire MessudAnyway, these books I love, theyโre all books by menโevery last one of them. Because if itโs unseemly and possibly dangerous for a man to be angry, itโs totally unacceptable for a woman to be angry. I wanted to write a voice that for me, as a reader, had been missing from the chorus: the voice of an angry woman.
Claire MessudThe professor husband of a friend of mine has likened children to the insane. I often think of it. He says that children live on the edge of madness, that their behavior, apparently unmotivated, shares the same dream logic as crazy people's. I see what he means, and because I've learned to be patient with children, to tease out the logic that's always somewhere there, and irrefutable once explained.
Claire MessudLife's funny. You have to find a way to keep going, to keep laughing, even after you realize that none of your dreams will come true. When you realize that, there's still so much of a life to get through.
Claire MessudIf youโre reading to find friends, youโre in deep trouble. We read to find life, in all its possibilities. The relevant question isnโt โIs this a potential friend for me?โ but โIs this character alive?'
Claire Messud