The world was ending then, it's ending still, and I'm happy to belong to it again. — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
Depression presents itself as a realism regarding the rottenness of the world in general and the rottenness of your life in particular. — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
Seriously, the world is changing so quickly that if you had any more than 80 years of change I dont see how… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
I can't stomach any kind of notion that serious fiction is good for us, because I don't believe that everything that's wrong… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
Seriously, the world is changing so quickly that if you had any more than 80 years of change I don't see how… — 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
The problem with making a virtual world of oneself is akin to the problem with projecting ourselves onto a cyberworld: there’s no… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
The place of stillness that you have to go to to write, but also to read seriously, is the point where you… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
Nell Zink is a writer of extraordinary talent and range. Her work insistently raises the possibility that the world is larger and… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
I think we live in an era of problems that, if you step back and look at them globally, can't be solved.… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
Fiction, I believed, was the transmutation of experiential dross into linguistic gold. Fiction meant taking up whatever the world had abandoned by… — 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
How could I have thought that I needed to cure myself in order to fit into the 'real' world? I didn't need… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
Even in an intensely mediated world, in a world that offers at least the illusion of radical self-invention and radical freedom of… — 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
Depression presents itself as a realism regarding the rottenness of the world in general and the rottenness of your life in particular.… — 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
“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
