He had a happy canine way of seeking approval without seeming insecure. — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
Fiction is a particularly effective way for strangers to connect across time and distance — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
If you're interested in how people behave, if you're interested in the way they talk about themselves, the way the conceive of… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
I wrote two plotted books, got some of the fundamentals of storytelling down, then... it's sort of like taking the training wheels… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
Then she waited, with parted lips and a saucy challenge in her eyes, to see how her presence -- the drama of… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
When I finally gave up any hope of doing anything representative of the American family, I actually seemed to have tapped into… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
Readers and writers are united in their need for solitude, in their pursuit of substance in a time of ever-increasing evanescence: in… — 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,… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
You could slap his wrist for saying it, but then he said it with his face, and you could spank him for… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
Mr. Franzen said he and Mr. Wallace, over years of letters and conversations about the ethical role of the novelist, had come… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
Since our technology is really just an extension of ourselves, we don’t have to have contempt for its manipulability in the way… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
Love is about bottomless empathy, born out of the heart’s revelation that another person is every bit as real as you are.… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
Walter had never liked cats. They'd seemed to him the sociopaths of the pet world, a species domesticated as an evil necessary… — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
It was a way of recognizing places of enchantment: people falling asleep like this. — Jonathan Franzen Copy Share Image
I think the mission for the writer is to tell stories in a compelling way about the stuff that cannot be talked… — 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
