Most of the people who have complaints with me aren't reading me. — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
It was a way of recognizing places of enchantment: people falling asleep like this. — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
It seems to me self-evident that if you have a life, things happen in it, and certain things do change; certain things… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
Good novels are produced by people who voluntarily isolate themselves and go deep, and report from the depths on what they find. — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
I defy anyone to finish Halldor Laxness's 'Independent People' without wetting the pages with tears. — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
I don't even read positive reviews unless they are absolutely certified by eight different people to not contain one thing that could… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
Deploring other people--their lack of perfection--had always been our sport. — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
If you're interested in how people behave, if you're interested in the way they talk about themselves, the way the conceive of… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
He became another data point in the American experiment of self-government, an experiment statistically skewed from the outset, because it wasn't the… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
If you look at the New Testament, it's a gospel of love. Yes, there's talk of judgement and there's talk of heaven… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
I know what paranoia is like. I know what it is like to worry about what people are saying about you and… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
When I finally gave up any hope of doing anything representative of the American family, I actually seemed to have tapped into… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
I was a late child from my parents, so I grew up surrounded by people a lot older than me. I think… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
I think cultures of conformity produce vast quantities of shame, both in people who simply can't conform and people who do conform,… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
One reason that birds matter - ought to matter - is that they are our last, best connection to a natural world… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
I'd be surprised if non-fiction writers hate to be interviewed. We all hate them, because there's really nothing to say except "Read… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
Since our technology is really just an extension of ourselves, we don’t have to have contempt for its manipulability in the way… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
When you stay in your room and rage or sneer or shrug your shoulders, as I did for many years, the world… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
She wondered: How could people respond to these images if images didn't secretly enjoy the same status as real things? Not that… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
Walter had never liked cats. They'd seemed to him the sociopaths of the pet world, a species domesticated as an evil necessary… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
If you read the biographies of people who have written good books, you often see the point where they suddenly come into… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
“The fundamental fact about all of us is that we’re alive for a while but will die before long. This fact is the real… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share
Fiction that isn't an author's personal adventure into the frightening or the unknown isn't worth writing for anything but money. — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share
“Parents are programmed to want the best for their kids, regardless of what they get in return. That's what love is supposed to be… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share
“Birds were what became of dinosaurs. Those mountains of flesh whose petrified bones were on display at the Museum of Natural History had done… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share
“Can a better kind of fiction save the world? There’s always some tiny hope (strange things do happen), but the answer is almost certainly… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share
A big part of me would be very proud never having anything of mine adapted, because if you want the real experience, there's only… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share
Seriously, the world is changing so quickly that if you had any more than 80 years of change I dont see how you could… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share
“I'm saying the structure and f the entire culture is flawed, chip said. I'm saying the bureaucracy has arrogated the right to define certain… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share
Integrity's a neutral value. Hyenas have integrity, too. They're pure hyena. — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share
“An odd thing about beauty, however, is that it's absence tends not to arouse our sympathy as much as other forms of privation do.” — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share
He became another data point in the American experiment of self-government, an experiment statistically skewed from the outset, because it wasn't the people with… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share
“It was this motley band of modest peeps and plovers on the beach who reminded me of the human beings I loved best -… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share
“Alfred believed that the real and the true were a minority that the world was bent on exterminating.” — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share
“Imagine that human existence is defined by an Ache: the Ache of our not being, each of us, the center of the universe; of… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share
The problem was money and the indignities of life without it. Every stroller, cell phone, Yankees cap, and SUV he saw was a torment.… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share
