Quotes by Jennifer Egan

“If I had a view like this to look down on every day, I would have the energy and inspiration to conquer the world. The trouble is, when you most need such a view, no one gives it to you.”

“The world is full of shitheads, Rhea. Dont listen to themlisten to me. And I know that Lou is one of those shitheads. But I listen.”

“I guess its always romantic when two people fall in love.... Even if it turns out not to be real.”

“I smoked my first pipe with Seth. I knew the stuff was bad, but I was so tired of being the cop, begging and ragging at him, throwing Pampers in his face when he walked in the door. I wanted to be ...”

“...our familiar features rinsed in weird adulthood.”

“It's finished. Everything went past, without me.”

“I can't tell if she's actually real, or if she's stopped caring if she's real or not. Or is not caring what makes a person real?”

“You can only write regularly if youre willing to write badly Accept bad writing as a way of priming the pump, a warm-up exercise that allows you to write well.”

“It made me alert, like someone had scrubbed mint all over my skin. I'd walk into that stinking, miserable prison and for the next three hours, a wise and beautiful woman would float out of the wrec...”

“...underneath that I'd said something else: we were both a couple of asswipes, and now only I'm an asswipe; why? And underneath that, something else: once an asswipe, always an asswipe.”

“When does a fake Mohawk become a real Mohawk? Who decides? How do you know if it's happened?”

“No one is waiting for me. In this story, Im the girl no one is waiting for. Usually the girl is fat, but my problem is more rare, which is freckles: I look like someone threw handfuls of mud at my ...”

“You said you were a fairy princessYou said you were a shooting starYou said we'd go to Bora BoraNow look at where the fuck we are”

“See," Sasha muttered, eyeing the sun. "It's mine.”

“She'd risked everything, and here was the result: the raw, warped core of her life.”

“A bit of theory as we settle down for lunch: the waiter's treatment of Kitty is actually a kind of sandwich, with the bottom bread being the bored and slightly effete way he normally acts with cust...”

“That's what death is, Danny thought: wanting to talk to someone and not being able to.”

“So this is it ⎯ what cost me all that time. A man who turned out to be old, a house that turned out to be empty.”

“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 is unique and special, that those included in i...”

“Time’s a goon, right? You gonna let that goon push you around?” Scotty shook his head. “The goon won.”