“Even our parents seemed to agree more and more with the television version of things, listening to the reporters' inanities as though… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
I've never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I've entered my story, I need them more than… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
I live my own life and nurse my own wounds. It's not the best way to live. But it's the way I… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
“Often he had the impression that the person answering questions from the scratchy armchair was a dummy he was controlling, that this… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
In the end, it wasn't death that surprised her but the stubbornness of life. — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
Though at this moment she felt abused, abandoned, and ashamed of herself, Madeleine knew that she was still young, that she had… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
Chunks of his life fell away, so that while we were moving ahead in time, he was moving back. — 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
“What was interesting about being the needy one was how much in love you felt. It was almost worth it. This dependency… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
I hadn't gotten old enough yet to realize that living sends a person not into the future but back into the past,… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
For the eternity that Lux Lisbon looked at him, Trip Fontaine looked back, and the love he felt at that moment, truer… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
“I do not think the patient truly meant to end her life. Her act was a cry for help.” — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
I have a good memory for early life. My visual memory is good about childhood and adolescence, and less good in the… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
If you talk to geneticists they are constantly finding that your genes are being switched on and off because of the environment.… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
One of the reasons that art is important to me is sometimes it actually feels more coherent than life. It orders the… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
Added to their loveliness was a new mysterious suffering, perfectly silent, visible in the blue puffiness beneath their eyes or the way… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
“I don't want to ruin your life," Leonard said in a gentler tone. "You're not ruining it." "The drugs just slow the… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
“He didn't understand how she had bewitched him, nor why having done so she promptly forgot his existence, and in desperate moods… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
When I'm creating a character, it's a little bit like what my theater teachers used to tell me about Stanislavsky, like if… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
“But maybe they understood more about life than I did. From an early age they knew what little value the world placed… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
In Madeleine's face was a stupidity Mitchell had never seen before. It was the stupidity of all normal people. It was the… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
I want an ending that's satisfying. I'm more of a classical writer than a modernist one in that I want the ending… — Jeffrey Eugenides Copy Share Image
Being a writer is a solitary life. So the little part of me that's an actor still enjoys the theatrical part of… — 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
