I always feel very afraid as I work on books. It's just so hard to write a decent book! — Jennifer Egan Copy Share Image
I love working with genre. And to me, the Victorian novel is the flourishing ancestor I'm always trying to access when I… — Jennifer Egan Copy Share Image
Time is always a component of place; you can't really talk about where without talking about when. — Jennifer Egan Copy Share Image
I just think that, for my particular personality, feeling slightly invisible is always a help. — Jennifer Egan Copy Share Image
I should say, I don't write about myself or my life. So for me, in fiction, it's always been about what I… — Jennifer Egan Copy Share Image
One of my strengths as a writer is that I'm a good problem-solver. I write these unthinking, ungoverned first drafts. The project… — Jennifer Egan Copy Share Image
What lists and awards don't measure - and I feel this strongly - is the lasting value of any work of art.… — Jennifer Egan Copy Share Image
I'm embarrassed to say this, but I shy away from memoirs. My feeling is always that I'm saving them for later, so… — Jennifer Egan Copy Share Image
I write totally spontaneously. I actually write fiction by hand - that always seems to startle people. I think the reason I… — Jennifer Egan Copy Share Image
In a way, I'm always trying to do something I'm not qualified to do. So I feel that lack of qualification. And… — Jennifer Egan Copy Share Image
“Behind the desk was nothing but view-the whole city flung out in front of us the way street vendors fling out their towels packed… — Jennifer Egan Copy Share
I just think that, for my particular personality, feeling slightly invisible is always a help. — Jennifer Egan Copy Share
Between books, I have to throw out everything I did before, because the tools I've used to write the previous book will not only… — Jennifer Egan Copy Share
As a reader and a writer, I'm happiest when apparently mutually exclusive states can somehow coexist. — Jennifer Egan Copy Share
I teach intermittently, and while I enjoy it, I don't find that it's a calling for me. — Jennifer Egan Copy Share
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… — Jennifer Egan Copy Share
“Thousands of solar panels lift and tilt at the same time, in the same way. I clutch at Dad's arm: "Why are they doing… — Jennifer Egan Copy Share
It was the hat. He looked sweet in the hat. How could a man in a fuzzy blue hat have used human bones to… — Jennifer Egan Copy Share
I was a stepchild in two different families. The hardest thing about being a stepchild is you know that in some way everything would… — Jennifer Egan Copy Share
“The seconds pass. I know what’s going on because it’s the same thing that always happens: give me something nice, something I love or… — Jennifer Egan Copy Share
I had this idea that I could hire myself out as a person to go on archeological digs and dig, without any training! I… — Jennifer Egan Copy Share
At night, the house thick with sleep, she would peer out her bedroom window at the trees and sky and feel the presence of… — Jennifer Egan Copy Share
I number my drafts, and by the time a book is done, I'll have 75 or 80 drafts of some sections. — Jennifer Egan Copy Share
Read at the level at which you want to write. Reading is the nourishment that feeds the kind of writing you want to do. — Jennifer Egan Copy Share
I was a stepchild in two different families. The hardest thing about being a stepchild is you know that in some way everything would… — Jennifer Egan Copy Share
