I always feel very afraid as I work on books. It's just so hard to write a decent book! — Jennifer Egan Copy Share Image
I am at my worst trying to write about things that overlap with my life. — Jennifer Egan Copy Share Image
I write to escape from my life. Writing about men separates 'me' from my work in a way that I find comforting. — Jennifer Egan Copy Share Image
“I haven’t had writer’s block. I think it’s because my process involves writing very badly.” — Jennifer Egan Copy Share Image
If you can write any way and it's working out, just bow down in gratitude. — Jennifer Egan Copy Share Image
When I had my first child, I didn't write for a year, and I felt when I tried to start again I… — Jennifer Egan Copy Share Image
Read at the level at which you want to write. Reading is the nourishment that feeds the kind of writing you want… — Jennifer Egan Copy Share Image
That adage about 'Write what you know' is basically the opposite of the way I function. I write about what I'm curious… — Jennifer Egan Copy Share Image
Be willing and unafraid to write badly, because often the bad stuff...forms a base on which to build something better. — Jennifer Egan Copy Share Image
I'm not reading what I write when I wrote. It's an unconscious outpouring that's a mess, and it's many, many steps away… — Jennifer Egan Copy Share Image
I write totally spontaneously. I actually write fiction by hand - that always seems to startle people. I think the reason I… — Jennifer Egan Copy Share Image
I write my first draft by hand, at least for fiction. For non-fiction, I write happily on a computer, but for fiction… — 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… — Jennifer Egan Copy Share Image
