I know that attaching memories to books may be going out of the world, but while it lasts, it's a strong record… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
But I care about the reader, and I'm trying to keep the reader's attention for as long as I can. — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
“But it rained all the time, fog covered the fields, and by then he was reading Tolstoy. There were some books that… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
“Almost overnight it became laughable to read writers like Cheever or Updike, who wrote about the suburbia Madeleine and most of her… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
“It was always embarrassing when professors assigned their own books. Even Madeleine, who found all the reading hard going, could tell that… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
“She wanted a book to take her places she couldn't get to herself. She thought a writer should work harder writing a… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
The ideas for my books come about in two ways. There can be an intellectual idea that seems to be the reason… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
The Pulitzer Prize is an idea; it's a vote of confidence. Like literature, it exists purely in the mind. — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
Novelists are always resisting autobiographical readings of their work, because they know how false those can be. — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
“And yet sometimes she worried about those musty old books were doing to her. Some people majored in English to prepare for… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
“Then one Sunday morning, before winter break, Abby's boyfriend, Whitney, materialized at their kitchen table, reading something called "Of Grammatology". When Madeleine… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
“She wasn't all that interested, as a reader, in the reader. She was still partial to that increasingly eclipsed entity: the writer.… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
“...the novel had reached its apogee with the marriage plot and had never recovered from its disappearance. In the days when success… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
I think the suicides in my first book came from the idea of growing up in Detroit. If you grow up in… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
I studied English literature in the honors program, which means that you had to take courses in various centuries. You had to… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
“There were pencil scrawls and ink stains, dried blood, snack crumbs; and the leather binding itself was secured to the lectern by… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
She thought a writer should work harder writing a book than she did reading it. — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
I'm aware of cliches and I'm aware of experiments that have been done and I'm aware of a kind of deadness to… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
It wasn't conscious, but I guess that one book is the reaction to the other. The first is so imprisoned in a… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
“Now I’ve given up any hope of lasting fame or literary perfection. I don’t care if I write a great book anymore,… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
“There were some books that reached through the noise of life to grab you by the collar and speak only of the… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
I think, especially when you're in college, each book that you're reading tends to tell you who you are. — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
“Reading a novel after reading semiotic theory was like jogging empty-handed after jogging with hand weights...How wonderful it was when one sentence… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
I had a briefcase at one point, but it was a kind of 1980s New Wave briefcase. It was made of some… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
If you think of even Tolstoy or a book like 'Anna Karenina,' you go from character to character, and each section is… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
“Only the Lisbon house remained dark, a tunnel, an emptiness, past our smoke and flames.” — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
“She had just started living like a grown-up and she'd never felt more vulnerable, frightened or confused in her life.” — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
It's often said that a traumatic experience early in life marks a person forever, pulls her out of line, saying, "Stay there. Don't move. — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
“The window was still open,” Mr Lisbon said. “I don’t think we’d ever remembered to shut it. It was all clear to me. I… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
I was aware that you weren't supposed to write about suburbia, that it was undignified in some way, the subject matter not momentous enough.… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
“Dr. Armonson stitched up her wrist wounds. Within five minutes of the transfusion he declared her out of danger. Chucking her under the chin,… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
“I don't approve of women driving, mind you. And now they get to vote!" He grumbled to himself. "Remember that play we saw ("The… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
I know that attaching memories to books may be going out of the world, but while it lasts, it's a strong record of your… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
I spend most of every day writing. I like to write every day if I can. I don't start extremely early. — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
