Jeffrey Eugenides

Paris was a museum displaying exactly itself.

— Jeffrey Eugenides

“Her face was calm, but inside she was tense.”

— Jeffrey Eugenides

I was unemployable when I got out of college.

— Jeffrey Eugenides

She wanted out of the decorating scheme.

— Jeffrey Eugenides

“There's a time to talk and a time for silence.”

— Jeffrey Eugenides

Usually my ideas are small.

— Jeffrey Eugenides

Winter is the season of alcoholism and despair.

— Jeffrey Eugenides

The time has to be right and the heart willing.

— Jeffrey Eugenides

Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling.

— Jeffrey Eugenides

Children learn to speak Male or Female the way they learn to speak English or French.

— Jeffrey Eugenides

We're all made up of many parts, other halves. Not just me.

— Jeffrey Eugenides

“We thought green was cheerful, but not too cheerful. Green was also serious.”

— Jeffrey Eugenides

“that since Cecilia’s suicide, the Lisbons could hardly wait for night to forget themselves in sleep.”

— Jeffrey Eugenides

“Speramus meliora; resurgret cineribus. "We hope for better things; it will rise from the ashes,”

— Jeffrey Eugenides

“Only the Lisbon house remained dark, a tunnel, an emptiness, past our smoke and flames.”

— Jeffrey Eugenides

So do boys and men announce their intentions. They cover you like a sarcophagus lid. And call it love.

— Jeffrey Eugenides

“Here's a question I still can't answer: Did I see through the male tricks because I was destined to scheme that way…

— Jeffrey Eugenides

“…hearts wrung with anguish, the anguish of having children, a vulnerability as astonishing as the capacity for love that parenthood brings.”

— Jeffrey Eugenides

“Great discoveries, whether of silk or gravity, are always windfalls. They happen to people loafing under trees.”

— Jeffrey Eugenides

Jerome was sliding and climbing on top of me and it felt like it had the night before, like a crushing weight.…

— Jeffrey Eugenides

I was directed because I knew I wanted to be a novelist, but I didn't have a very good job or a…

— Jeffrey Eugenides

“There were some books that reached through the noise of life to grab you by the collar and speak only of the…

— Jeffrey Eugenides

College wasn't like the real world. In the real world people dropped names based on their renown. In college, people dropped names…

— Jeffrey Eugenides

“I climbed the stairs and got back into bed, pulling a pillow over my face to block out the summer light. But…

— Jeffrey Eugenides

I have a good memory for early life. My visual memory is good about childhood and adolescence, and less good in the…

— Jeffrey Eugenides

“We realized that the version of the world [our parents] rendered for us was not the world they really believed in, and…

— Jeffrey Eugenides

“Her father was about to have a heart attack, and my memories of her are now tinged with a blue wash of…

— Jeffrey Eugenides

“O Earth, lie heavily upon her eyes; Seal her sweet eyes weary of watching Earth; Lie close around her; leave no room…

— Jeffrey Eugenides

“The sky grew darker, and the light abandoned the daytime, so that we found ourselves always moving in a timeless murk, the…

— Jeffrey Eugenides

“...every now and then he would tilt his head back so that his sunglasses reflected sky, and would say, "I love her."…

— Jeffrey Eugenides

I had a briefcase at one point, but it was a kind of 1980s New Wave briefcase. It was made of some…

— Jeffrey Eugenides

“As much as he hated his lithium, here it was his friend. Leonard could feel the huge tide of sadness waiting to…

— Jeffrey Eugenides

Reading a novel after reading semiotic theory was like jogging empty-handed after jogging with hand weights. What exquisite guilt she felt, wickedly…

— Jeffrey Eugenides

“But now, Mr. Bates didn't scream or try to get the truck's license plate, nor did Mrs. Bates, who had once wept…

— Jeffrey Eugenides

Emotions, in my experience aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." I'd like to have at…

— Jeffrey Eugenides

“...that manic depression, far from being a liability was an advantage. It was a selected trait. If it wasn't selected for, then…

— Jeffrey Eugenides

“We knew the pain of winter wind rushing up your skirt, and the ache of keeping your knees together in class, and…

— Jeffrey Eugenides

“Dear Mom and Dad, I know you’re only trying to do what’s best for me, but I don’t think anyone knows for…

— Jeffrey Eugenides

Historical fact: People stopped being people in 1913. That was the year Henry Ford put his cars on rollers and made his…

— Jeffrey Eugenides

“Every morning a great wall of fog descends upon the city of San Francisco. It begins far out at sea. It forms…

— Jeffrey Eugenides