“since the Depression, we bankers have had the leisure and . . . solitude, you might say, to think about the future. The Civil War left us with a federal government. The Great War made us a creditor nation. As bankers, we must anticipate what changes this war will thrust upon us.” […] The old man leaned forward and took a long breath.… — Jennifer Egan Copy Share
“We’ll emerge from this war victorious and unscathed, and become bankers to the world. We’ll export our dreams, our language, our culture,… — Jennifer Egan Copy Share Image
Structural dissatisfaction: Returning to circumstances that once pleased you, after having experienced a more thrilling or opulent way of life, and finding… — 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 Image
I just think that, for my particular personality, feeling slightly invisible is always a help. — Jennifer Egan Copy Share Image
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 Image
As a reader and a writer, I'm happiest when apparently mutually exclusive states can somehow coexist. — Jennifer Egan Copy Share Image
I teach intermittently, and while I enjoy it, I don't find that it's a calling for me. — Jennifer Egan Copy Share Image
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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
At night, the house thick with sleep, she would peer out her bedroom window at the trees and sky and feel the presence of a mystery. Some possibility that included her--separate from her present life and without its limitations. A secret. Riding in the car with her father, she would look out at other cars full of people she'd never… — Jennifer Egan Copy Share
