A Quote by Caitlin Moran

As a former ballerina, I can't put down Maggie Shipstead's new book, Astonish Me.

Caitlin Moran

Quote Topics

Astonish Ballerina Book Down Former Maggie Me New New Book Put

Quote Author

Caitlin Moran
British - Journalist
Born: April 5, 1975

Maggie Shipstead takes hold of the reader and doesn't let go. Astonish Me is a haunting, powerful novel.

Dani Shapiro

Maggie Shipstead's prose is so graceful and muscular, so dazzling, so sure-handed and fearless, that at times I had to remind myself to breathe. Astonish Me is a treasure of small surprises.

Maria Semple

Flawless . . . Tightly choreographed . . . Shipstead gains entry into exclusive worlds and trains her opera glasses on private social rituals, as well as behind-the-scenes hanky panky . . . Similar to classic ballet, the power of Astonish Me arises out of the pairing of a melodramatic storyline with scrupulously executed range of movement . . . Shipstead sweeps you into this insider world of sweat, narcissism, and short-lived magic . . . Transcendent.

Maureen Corrigan

I love being in scenes where I get to be part of a Maggie Smith put-down. A Dowager Countess put-down is always a special moment. Especially if you're working on set and she managed to do one off set at you.

Allen Leech

People say that wrestling is not ballet. But as a former ballerina, I'd like to see some of these men put on a pair of tights and go do what a dancer does. Because it's a lot! It's definitely difficult.

Carmella

The... promptitude with which many painters, on arriving at an entirely new and unfamiliar place, settle down to work at once, never fails to astonish me: it seems indecent, like button-holing a complete stranger.

Augustus John

It's easier for the former masters to put aside the masks that hid their humanity than for the former slaves to recognise the faces underneath. Or to trust that this is not a new mask these are wearing.

Nadine Gordimer

I was perpetually grief-stricken when I finished a book, and would slide down from my sitting position on the bed, put my cheek on the pillow and sigh for a long time. It seemed there would never be another book. It was all over, the book was dead. It lay in its bent cover by my hand. What was the use? Why bother dragging the weight of my small body down to dinner? Why move? Why breathe? The book had left me, and there was no reason to go on.

Marya Hornbacher

The Coen brothers said something that helped me, "When you put the book down, you have a certain feeling, a certain understanding. That's what they need to feel when they walk out of the theater. That's your job, to literally put this book on film, you won't make a good movie, you'll do no service to anyone.

Angelina Jolie

I did feel as though a number of critics had appointed themselves, when they sat down with a new book of mine, to rectify what they felt to be was my inflated reputation and so that the book in hand was not really given a chance but made a kind of weapon in the general attempt to bring me down to size.

John Updike

Men astonish themselves far more than they astonish their friends.

Pearl Mary Teresa Craigie

You know what I'm thinking?' Maggie said. I had no idea. 'Nope,' David replied. Apparently David didn't know either. Maggie turned to me with pleading eyes.'Our babysitter has the flu.' 'I'm sorry to hear that,' I replied. Dead silence. I honestly had no idea what Maggie was getting at, so I misread the silence. 'It's not serious, I hope,' I said sympathetically.

Lisa Lutz

The book that convinced me I wanted to be a writer was 'Crime and Punishment'. I put the thing down after reading it in a fever over two or three days... I said, 'If this is what a book can be, then that is what I want to do.'

Paul Auster

It would astonish if not amuse the older citizens to learn that I (a strange, friendless, uneducated, penniless boy, working at ten dollars per month) have been put down as the candidate of pride, wealth, and aristocratic family distinction.