“The only guaranteed result of having an affair would be to add yet another disapproving woman to his life.” — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
“You may be poor, but the one thing nobody can take away from you is the freedom to fuck up your life… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
It seems to me self-evident that if you have a life, things happen in it, and certain things do change; certain things… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
...She felt that nothing could kill her hope now, nothing. She was seventy-five and she was going to make some changes in… — 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
“It's good to have friends in life. If you want to have friends, you have to remember that nobody's perfect.” — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
“My first hero was Thomas Edison, whose adult life had consisted entirely of free time.” — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
How wrong to have been so negative, how wrong to have been so gloomy, how wrong to have run away from life,… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
“The guiding principle of Martin’s personality, the sum of his interior existence, was the desire to be left alone. If all those… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
To read is to have experiences; every book changes my life at least a little bit. The first time I can remember… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
“I'm starting to think paradise isn't eternal contentment. It's more like there's something eternal about feeling contented. There's no such thing as… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
“Taking a cab to the city center, she was pierced unexpectedly by regret for not doing exactly that: not walking the streets… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
Imagine that human existence is defined by an Ache: the Ache of our not being, each of us, the center of the… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
I guess my life hasn’t always been happy, or easy, or exactly what I want. At a certain point, I just have… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
“Chipper intuited that this feeling of futility would be a fixture in his life. A dull waiting and then a broken promise,… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
“She had to tell him, while she still had time, how wrong he’d been and how right she’d been. How wrong not… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
“And when the event, the big change in your life, is simply an insight—isn't that a strange thing? That absolutely nothing changes… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
“She has embarrassingly inquired, of her children, whether there's a woman in his life, and has rejoiced at hearing no. Not because… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
“And yet there’s other species even closer to zero. I know that. And I hope to God somebody else is worrying about… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
“Birds were what became of dinosaurs. Those mountains of flesh whose petrified bones were on display at the Museum of Natural History… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
“Imagine that human existence is defined by an Ache: the Ache of our not being, each of us, the center of the… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
And when the event, the big change in your life, is simply an insight-- isn't that a strange thing? That absolutely nothing… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
If you read the biographies of people who have written good books, you often see the point where they suddenly come into… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
“My conception of a novel is that it ought to be a personal struggle, a direct and total engagement with the author's… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
“Her eyes weren't blinking. There was still something almost dead in them, something very far away. She seemed to be seeing all… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
“But what do we expect will become of students, successfully cocooned from uncomfortable feelings, once they leave the sanctuary of academe for… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
Life, in her experience, had a kind of velvet luster. You looked at yourself from one perspective and all you saw was… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
If multiculturalism succeeds in making us a nation of independently empowered tribes, each tribe will be deprived of the comfort of victimhood… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
The problem was money and the indignities of life without it. Every stroller, cell phone, Yankees cap, and SUV he saw was… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
Robin turned and looked straight into her. "What's life for?" "I don't know." "I don't either. But I don't think it's about… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
Each new thing he encountered in life impelled him in a direction that fully convinced him of its rightness, but then the… — 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
“Gary had hoped to find her more cooperative. He already had one "alternative" sibling and he didn't need another. It frustrated him… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
Patty knew, in her heart, that he was wrong in his impression of her. And the mistake she went to go on… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
“I had a nightmare about the Averys’ sweet-tempered German shepherd, Ina. In the dream, as I was sitting on the floor in… — 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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
Integrity's a neutral value. Hyenas have integrity, too. They're pure hyena. — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
“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 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 people with… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
“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 Image
