All Jennifer Egan Quotes
- I've never been that confident. I don't tend to think, swaggeringly, I'm going to ace this. It's just not who I am. Ace
- So I feel that lack of qualification. And I'm scared. And I have a tendency to think things may not/probably won't work out. That's my… Basic
- I think the one thing that's changed over time is that I've come to realise, as a fiction writer, the fact that I don't think… Changed
- One area I have a huge amount of trouble in is writing about myself. I get a heavy, almost depressed feeling. Amount
- I guess it's always romantic when two people fall in love.... Even if it turns out not to be real. Fall
- Be willing and unafraid to write badly, because often the bad stuff...forms a base on which to build something better. Bad
- Reading is the nourishment that lets you do interesting work, Inspirational
- I think, for one thing, all of us remember those teenage years and those songs that we fell in love with and the music scene… Age
- Read at the level at which you want to write. Reading is the nourishment that feeds the kind of writing you want to do. Feeds
- I was a stepchild in two different families. The hardest thing about being a stepchild is you know that in some way everything would be… Didnt
- Americans are less selfish than some of our politicians believe and will respond with reason and resilience to passionate clarity. American
- Goon Squad' took about three years to write and that's the short end. My second novel, 'Look at Me,' took six years. End
- I am at my worst trying to write about things that overlap with my life. Inspirational
- I don't really know where my ideas come from. I start with a time and a place. That's what I need to get started, and… From
- I'm a dogged person. I respond to adversity with a steely resistance. Adversity
- If you don't have people that the reader cares about and stories that are gripping, you've got nothing. Care
- That adage about 'Write what you know' is basically the opposite of the way I function. I write about what I'm curious to find out. Adage
- The bottom line is that I like my first drafts to be blind, unconscious, messy efforts; that's what gets me the best material. Best
- We live in a moment and a culture when reading is really endangered. There's simply no way to write well, though, if you're not reading… Culture
- Because you can't write habitually and well all the time, you have to be willing to write badly. That's how you get the regularity that… All
- But I always need to identify with a character to write about him or her - and by 'identify,' I mean see the world through… Acts
- I did go on safari in Kenya when I was 17, with my mother, stepfather and little brother, and I kept a careful journal of… Africa
- I felt more doubtful than usual with 'Goon Squad,' because I knew that the book's genre wasn't easily named - Novel? Stories? Novel-in-stories? - and… Book
- I find myself thinking more about the past as I get older... maybe because there's just more of it to think about. At the same… Access
- I hope to keep writing journalism as long as I write fiction; it's afforded me such amazing adventures and opportunities. It does take a lot… Adventure