Claire Quotes

It's very hard from a distance to figure out who has lost their minds. One party, the other party, all of us, the president.

I worry about the lack of experience that Rex Tillerson has had on the diplomatic front and, frankly, I think that's true for many of the appointments to [Donald] Trump's cabinet.

My first obligation is my job. It's very hard to really get into campaign mode when you've got to focus on doing the work.

I think I'm the last Democrat left in the Senate after Russ Feingold was defeated that won't take earmarks.

They [people from the Donald Trump cabinet] haven't had experience in the areas that they're being asked to manage in a very complicated world and a very complicated government.

I am a small-town girl.

No commander in chief would ever say, "I'm not going to listen to the guys on the ground."

So it is the business community and agricultural community who I think might have the most influence on helping us make this effort more bipartisan.

Somehow in the public sector, if you start in the mailroom and spend your life getting promoted, it's unseemly.

Frankly, earmarking is not the problem. It is a symptom of the problem.

All the movies where I play nice guys don't seem to do very well.

I think there are certain folks in Missouri that don't trust government. And they haven't trusted government for a long time.

I think it's important that we show up. I think it's important that we communicate directly with all those working people.

For Vladimir Putin to be trying to impact our elections, that - we have to - there has to be - he has to be held accountable.

I think Donald Trump can take major steps towards reassuring the American people that there can't even be appearance of impropriety for pay-to-play schemes under his administration.

I just think it's weird that Donald Trump wants to be an executive producer of a TV show while he's President of the United States. I agree with Newt Gingrich. He doesn't have to do that.

I believe that sexual assault - if this is possible - was even more underreported when I was in school.

The more accurately one can illuminate a particular human experience, the better the work of art.

I’m not a writing group member, not a joiner in that way. I don’t seek a wide swath of feedback.

If I had to summarize, most broadly, my concerns as a writer, I'd say the question 'How then must we live?' is at the heart of it, for me.

An abiding preoccupation for me is how much of our lives are invisible and unknown by other people like the Chekhov story The Lady With the Little Dog.

Does Being Happy simply Create More Time, in the way that Being Sad, as we all know, slows time and thickens it, like cornstarch in a sauce?).

I believe that, in an ideal world, writers would feel free to write what matters to them without having to consider success, failure, the market, etc.

But we're lost in a world of appearances now.

As my wise friend Didi has more than once observed about life's passages, every departure entails an arrival elsewhere, every arrival implies a departure from afar.

Maybe that, really, is as good a definition as any of an artist in the world: a ruthless person.

If you’re reading to find friends, you’re in deep trouble.

I measure my life out in books." "You should be measuring your life by living. Correction: you shouldn't be measuring your life. What's the point?

I've always felt that if a project seems easy, or even attainable, why pursue it? I'll always find the hardest path.

I always say to my students, if you can do anything other than writing and be happy, then you should.

I feel as if they are somewhere between movement and stillness, and thus in possession of a certain energy.

Remember, second chances don't expire until midnight.

Life, on confidence, is an extraordinary and powerful thing

Think less. Take action. Be authentic.

When we are eager to be shy and humble about our accomplishments, we lose confidence in our abilities.

Having a crush is a bit like being infected with the most annoying, troubling and yet delicious disease you could get. It is almost more of an affliction.

All writers behave badly. All people behave badly.

All the people I have written about remain with me - perhaps they are my closest friends.

Everybody is vulnerable through love of their children. Hostages to fortune.

The young Dickens was so alive, so self-confident, so funny.

By the time I went up to Cambridge, I was extremely quiet and well behaved, although I now meet people who remember me as not like that at all.

The studios knew how to build a star, and they knew what to do with you. They also taught you everything.

God tempers the cold to the shorn sheep.

But one always returns to one's first loves. [Fr., Mais on revient toujours A ses premieres amours.]

I guess one gets the face one deserves.

He saw the world more vividly than other people, and reacted to what he saw with laughter, horror, indignation, and sometimes sobs.

He could take on anything and everything, it seemed, rather than leave himself time to reflect on his dissatisfaction with his life and what he might do about it.

A thing is only as great as the amount a person is willing to risk for it. If you are not willing to risk anything, then the thing mustn't be so great at all.

The secret to happiness is the journey, not the destination.

...the only thing really worth doing in this life is giving love to everyone around you.