Quotes by Jennifer Egan

“All that love, all that pain, all the stuff people feel – not just me and you, brother, but everyone, everyone who's ever walked this beautiful green planet – how can all that disappear when somebo...”

“I’m sorry and I believe in you and I’ll always be near you, protecting you, and I will never leave you, I’ll be curled around your heart for the rest of your life.”

“I would lie of course. I lied a lot and with good reason: to protect the truth—safeguard it like wearing fake gems to keep the real ones from getting stolen or cheapened by overuse. I guarded what ...”

“I haven’t had writer’s block. I think it’s because my process involves writing very badly.”

“The world is full of shitheads, Rhea. Don’t listen to them—listen to me. And I know that Lou is one of those shitheads. But I listen.”

“I guess it’s 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 ...”

“You can only write regularly if you’re 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...”

“No one is waiting for me. In this story, I’m 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...”