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26 Interesting Quotes By Alison Lurie

Famous As: American Novelist and Academic
Born On: September 3, 1926
Died On: December 3, 2020
Born In: Chicago, Illinois, United States
Died At Age: 94
Alison Lurie is an illustrious American academic and novelist. She was awarded the ‘Pulitzer Prize’ for her novel ‘Foreign Affairs’ in 1984. Though she gained recognition as a novelist, she has written a number of articles and non-fiction books especially on semiotics of dress and children’s literature as well. She bagged a number of prestigious awards for her thoughts and writings, including ‘American Academy Arts and Letters Award,’ ‘Honorary degree from University of Oxford and University of Nottingham.’ Some of her notable works include, ‘The Black Geese,’ ‘The Language of Clothes,’ ‘The War between the Tates,’ ‘Women and Ghosts’ etc. Read through the corpus of sayings and quotes by Alison Lurie. Let us browse through the insightful collection of quotations and thoughts by Alison Lurie.
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There's a rule, I think. You get what you want in life, but not your second choice too.

There's a rule, I think. You get what you want in life, but not your second choice too.

Alison Lurie
As one went to Europe to see the living past, so one must visit Southern California to observe the future.

As one went to Europe to see the living past, so one must visit Southern California to observe the future.

Alison Lurie

Grosvenor and Burke suggest that continually, though silently, a school building tells students who they are and how they should think about the world. It can help to manufacture rote obedience or independent activity; it can create high self-confidence or low self-esteem.

Alison Lurie

In a sense much great literature is subversive, since its very existence implies that what matters is art, imagination, and truth. In what we call the real world, on the other hand, what usually counts is money, power, and public success.

Alison Lurie
We say something every morning when we decide how to dress.

We say something every morning when we decide how to dress.

Alison Lurie
Even when we say nothing our clothes are talking noisily to everyone who sees us, telling them who we are, where we come from, what we like to do in bed and a dozen other intimate things ...

Even when we say nothing our clothes are talking noisily to everyone who sees us, telling them who we are, where we come from, what we like to do in bed and a dozen other intimate things ...

Alison Lurie
We can lie in the language of dress or try ot tell the truth; but unless we are naked and bald, it is impossible to be silent.

We can lie in the language of dress or try ot tell the truth; but unless we are naked and bald, it is impossible to be silent.

Alison Lurie

When other people first became aware of the cow, they expressed concern and anxiety. They suggested strategies for getting the animal out of Molly's parlor: remedies and doctors and procedures, some mainstream and some New Age. They related anecdotes of friends who had removed their own cows in one way or another. But after a while they had exhausted their suggestions. Then they usually began to pretend that the cow wasn't there, and they preferred for Molly to go along with the pretense.

Alison Lurie
Fashion is free speech, and one of the privileges, if not always one of the pleasures, of a free world

Fashion is free speech, and one of the privileges, if not always one of the pleasures, of a free world

Alison Lurie

Most of the great works of juvenile literature are subversive in one way or another: they express ideas and emotions not generally approved of or even recognized at the time; they make fun of honored figures and piously held beliefs; and they view social pretenses with clear-eyed directness, remarking - as in Andersen's famous tale - that the emperor has no clothes.

Alison Lurie
The fashion industry is no more able to preserve a style that men and women have decided to abandon than to introduce one they do not choose to accept.

The fashion industry is no more able to preserve a style that men and women have decided to abandon than to introduce one they do not choose to accept.

Alison Lurie
We all want to be guilty, because guilt is power.

We all want to be guilty, because guilt is power.

Alison Lurie
...you can't write well with only the nice parts of your character, and only about nice things. And I don't want even to try anymore. I want to use everything, including hate and envy and lust and fear.

...you can't write well with only the nice parts of your character, and only about nice things. And I don't want even to try anymore. I want to use everything, including hate and envy and lust and fear.

Alison Lurie

Attempts to limit female mobility by hampering locomotion are ancient and almost universal. The foot-binding of upper-class Chinese girls and the Nigerian custom of loading women's legs with pounds of heavy brass wire are extreme examples, but all over the world similar stratagems have been employed to make sure that once you have caught a woman she cannot run away, and even if she stays around she cannot keep up with you. ... Literally as well as figuratively modern women's shoes are what keeps Samantha from running as fast as Sammy.

Alison Lurie
Nature can seem cruel, but she balances her books.

Nature can seem cruel, but she balances her books.

Alison Lurie
America has a history of political isolation and economic self-sufficiency; its citizens have tended to regard the rest of the world as a disaster area from which lucky or pushy people emigrate to the Promised Land.

America has a history of political isolation and economic self-sufficiency; its citizens have tended to regard the rest of the world as a disaster area from which lucky or pushy people emigrate to the Promised Land.

Alison Lurie
If nothing will finally survive of life besides what artists report of it, we have no right to report what we know to be lies.

If nothing will finally survive of life besides what artists report of it, we have no right to report what we know to be lies.

Alison Lurie
Real literature, like travel, is always a surprise.

Real literature, like travel, is always a surprise.

Alison Lurie
Other wars end eventually in victory, defeat or exhaustion, but the war between men and women goes on forever.

Other wars end eventually in victory, defeat or exhaustion, but the war between men and women goes on forever.

Alison Lurie
With a pencil and paper, I could revise the world.

With a pencil and paper, I could revise the world.

Alison Lurie
There is a peculiar burning odor in the room, like explosives. the kitchen fills with smoke and the hot, sweet, ashy smell of scorched cookies. The war has begun.

There is a peculiar burning odor in the room, like explosives. the kitchen fills with smoke and the hot, sweet, ashy smell of scorched cookies. The war has begun.

Alison Lurie
You get into the habit of being angry and hurt by life, and then when something good happens you can't accept it because it doesn't fit the pattern.

You get into the habit of being angry and hurt by life, and then when something good happens you can't accept it because it doesn't fit the pattern.

Alison Lurie

Many Americans think of the rest of the world as a kind of Disneyland, a showplace for quaint fauna, flora and artifacts. They dress for travel in cheap, comfortable, childish clothes, as if they were going to the zoo and would not be seen by anyone except the animals.

Alison Lurie

The great subversive works of children's literature suggest that there are other views of human life besides those of the shopping mall and the corporation. They mock current assumptions and express the imaginative, unconventional, noncommercial view of the world in its simplest and purest form. They appeal to the imaginative, questioning, rebellious child within all of us, renew our instinctive energy, and act as a force for change. This is why such literature is worthy of our attention and will endure long after more conventional tales have been forgotten.

Alison Lurie

But I think that sometimes, when one's behaved like a rather second-rate person, the way I did at breakfast, then in a kind of self-destructive shock one goes and does something really second-rate. Almost as if to prove it ...

Alison Lurie

The fashion pages of magazines such as Cosmopolitan now seem to specialize in telling the career girl what to wear to charm the particular wrong type of man who reads Playboy, while the editorial pages tell her how to cope with the resulting psychic damage.

Alison Lurie