Jennifer Egan citations

“I don’t want to fade away, I want to flame away - I want my death to be an attraction, a spectacle, a mystery. A work of art.”

“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 pause makes you think the song will end. And then the song isn't really over, so you're relieved. But then the song does actually end, because every song ends, obviously, and THAT. TIME. THE. END. IS. FOR. REAL.”

“Sure, everything is ending," Jules said, "but not yet.”

“There's a fine line between thinking about somebody and thinking about not thinking about somebody, but I have the patience and the self-control to walk that line for hours - days, if I have to.”

“There are so many ways to go wrong. All we've got are metaphors, and they're never exactly right. You can never just Say. The. Thing.”

“Structural dissatisfaction: Returning to circumstances that once pleased you, after having experienced a more thrilling or opulent way of life, and finding that you can no longer tolerate them.”

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

“I’m done. I’m old, I’m sad - that’s on a good day. I want out of this mess. But I don’t want to fade away, I want to flame away - I want my death to be an attraction, a spectacle, a mystery. A work of art.”

“Everybody sounds stoned, because they're e-mailing people the whole time they're talking to you.”

“I think, The world is actually huge. That's the part no one can really explain.”

“Her only thought was of getting away, as if she were carrying a live grenade from inside the house, so that when it exploded, it would destroy just herself.”

“Redemption, transformation--God how she wanted these things. Every day, every minute. Didn't everyone?”

“It was the hat. He looked sweet in the hat. How could a man in a fuzzy blue hat have used human bones to pave his roads?”

“Rich children are always blond, Jocelyn goes. It has to do with vitamins.”

“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?”

“That we have some history together that hasn’t happened yet.”

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

“Everyone we've lost, we'll find. Or they'll find us.”

“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.”

“th blu nyt
th stRs u can't c
th hum tht nevr gOs awy”

“The answers were maddeningly absent—it was like trying to remember a song that you knew made you feel a certain way, without a title, artist, or even a few bars to bring it back.”

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

“Kathy was a Republican, one of those people who used the unforgivable phrase "meant to be"--usually when describing her own good fortune or the disasters that had befallen other people.”

“This is the music business. 'Five years is five hundred years' - your words.”

“and the question is, which one is really “you”

“What he needed was to find fifty more people like him, who had stopped being themselves without realizing it.”

“Sometimes I imagine myself looking back on right now and I think like where will I be standing when I look back Will right now look like the beginning of a great life or… or what”

“I know I'm famous and irresitible - a combination whose properties closely resemble radioactivity - and I know that you in this room are helpless against me.”