183 Quotes by Elif Batuman

Much as there are things about our own life stories that we can learn only from the systematic study of our dreams, there are things about the human condition that we can learn only from a systematic study of literature.

I always wanted to write novels, even before I had read a lot of novels or had a very good idea of what they were.

The novel is like a melancholy form. It's about some kind of disillusionment with the way things are versus the idea of how they could be or how they used to be.