Quote

We live in a moment and a culture when reading is really endangered. There's simply no way to write well, though, if you're not reading well.

Jennifer Egan

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Jennifer Egan
Age: 62
Born: 1962
Born: September 7
Novelist
Writer
Chicago
Illinois
Really
Moment
Way
Culture
Write
Moments
Live
Endangered
Wells
Simply
Well
Though
Writing
Reading

More quotes by Jennifer Egan

Image
Americans are less selfish than some of our politicians believe and will respond with reason and resilience to passionate clarity.
Jennifer Egan
Image
There's a fine line between thinking about somebody and thinking about not thinking about somebody, but I have the patience and the self-control to walk that line for hours - days, if I have to.
Jennifer Egan
Image
And the question is, which one is really you.
Jennifer Egan
Image
Structural dissatisfaction: Returning to circumstances that once pleased you, after having experienced a more thrilling or opulent way of life, and finding that you can no longer tolerate them.
Jennifer Egan
Image
One area I have a huge amount of trouble in is writing about myself. I get a heavy, almost depressed feeling.
Jennifer Egan
Image
We lie. That's what we do. You're selling me a line of bullshit and you want me to sell you a line of bullshit back so you can write a major line of bullshit and be paid for it.
Jennifer Egan
Image
A sense of that kind of narrative movement that we experience online could have been in my mind easily, though not consciously. I do rely so much on my unconscious, the way I write my stuff the way I do. I let my unconscious work. I have better ideas that way and more interesting work.
Jennifer Egan
Image
[I]t may be that a crowd at a particular moment of history creates the object to justify its gathering.
Jennifer Egan
Image
The bottom line is that I like my first drafts to be blind, unconscious, messy efforts that's what gets me the best material.
Jennifer Egan
Image
The sky was electric blue above the trees but the yard felt dark. Stephanie went to the edge of the lawn and sat her forehead on her knees. The grass and soil were still warm from the day. She wanted to cry but she couldn't. The feeling was too deep.
Jennifer Egan
Image
I think the one thing that's changed over time is that I've come to realise, as a fiction writer, the fact that I don't think it will work out, doesn't mean that it actually won't.
Jennifer Egan
Image
Like all failed experiments, that one taught me something I didn’t expect: one key ingredient of so-called experience is the delusional faith that it is unique and special, that those included in it are privileged and those excluded from it are missing out.
Jennifer Egan
Image
I had this idea that I could hire myself out as a person to go on archeological digs and dig, without any training! I actually wrote to a number of archeology departments and offered up my services.
Jennifer Egan
Image
I hope to keep writing journalism as long as I write fiction it's afforded me such amazing adventures and opportunities. It does take a lot of time, so it's hard to do both at once, but I try to do a big journalism piece every couple of years, and I'll hopefully continue with that.
Jennifer Egan
Image
I haven't had writer's block. I think it's because my process involves writing very badly.
Jennifer Egan
Image
If you don't have people that the reader cares about and stories that are gripping, you've got nothing.
Jennifer Egan
Image
I'm always happy, Sasha said. Sometimes I just forget.
Jennifer Egan
Image
I did go on safari in Kenya when I was 17, with my mother, stepfather and little brother, and I kept a careful journal of the experience that was very helpful in terms of my sensory impressions of Africa. I have traveled quite a bit at distinct times in my life, though now that I have kids I've settled down.
Jennifer Egan
Image
The answers were maddeningly absent—it was like trying to remember a song that you knew made you feel a certain way, without a title, artist, or even a few bars to bring it back.
Jennifer Egan
Image
Oh we'll know each other forever, Bix says. The days of losing touch are almost gone.
Jennifer Egan