Quotes from book
The Corrections

The Corrections
Jonathan Franzen

The Corrections is a 2001 novel by American author Jonathan Franzen. It revolves around the troubles of an elderly Midwestern couple and their three adult children, tracing their lives from the mid-20th century to "one last Christmas" together near the turn of the millennium. The novel was awarded the National Book Award in 2001 and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 2002.

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“What you discovered about yourself in raising children wasn't always agreeable or attractive.”

Jonathan Franzen book The Corrections

Source: The Corrections

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“A lack of desire to spend money becomes a symptom of disease that requires expensive medication. Which medication then destroys the libido, in other words destroys the appetite for the one pleasure in life that's free, which means the person has to spend even more money on compensatory pleasures. The very definition of mental 'health' is the ability to participate in the consumer economy. When you buy into therapy, you're buying into buying.”

Jonathan Franzen book The Corrections

The Corrections (2001)

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“He wanted this someone to see how much he hurt.”

Jonathan Franzen book The Corrections

Source: The Corrections

Jonathan Franzen photo

“Life, in her experience, had a kind of velvet luster. You looked at yourself from one perspective and all you saw was weirdness. Move your head a little bit, though, and everything looked reasonably normal. She believed she couldn't hurt anybody as long as she was only working.”

Jonathan Franzen book The Corrections

Source: The Corrections (2001)

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“And meanwhile the sad truth was that not everyone could be extraordinary, not everyone could be extremely cool; because whom would this leave to be ordinary?”

Jonathan Franzen book The Corrections

Source: The Corrections (2001)
Context: All around him, millions of newly minted American millionaires were engaged in the identical pursuit of feeling extraordinary - of buying the perfect Victorian, of skiing the virgin slope, of knowing the chef personally, of locating the beach that had no footprints. There were further tens of millions of young Americans who didn't have money but were nonetheless chasing the Perfect Cool. And meanwhile the sad truth was that not everyone could be extraordinary, not everyone could be extremely cool; because whom would this leave to be ordinary? Who would perform the thankless work of being comparatively uncool?

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“It was a way of recognizing places of enchantment: people falling asleep like this.”

Jonathan Franzen book The Corrections

Source: The Corrections

Jonathan Franzen photo

“He couldn't figure out if she was immensely well adjusted or seriously messed up.”

Jonathan Franzen book The Corrections

Source: The Corrections

Jonathan Franzen photo

“His tiredness hurt so much it kept him awake.”

Jonathan Franzen book The Corrections

Source: The Corrections

Jonathan Franzen photo

“Fiction is a solution, the best solution, to the problem of existential solitude.”

Jonathan Franzen book The Corrections

Source: The Corrections

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“Here was a torture that Greek inventors of the Feast and the Stone had omitted from their Hades: the Blanket of Self-Deception. A lovely warm blanket as far as it covered the soul in torment, but it never quite covered everything.”

Jonathan Franzen book The Corrections

Source: The Corrections

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“So, what, you got cigarette burns, too?" Gitanes said.

Chip showed his palm, "It's nothing."

"Self-inflicted. You pathetic American."

"Different kind of prison" Chip said.”

Jonathan Franzen book The Corrections

Source: The Corrections

Jonathan Franzen photo

“The taste of self-inflicted suffering, of an evening trashed in spite, brought curious satisfactions. Other people stopped being real enough to carry blame for how you felt. Only you and your refusal remained. And like self-pity, or like the blood that filled your mouth when a tooth was pulled - the salty ferric juices that you swallowed and allowed yourself to savor - refusal had a flavor for which a taste could be acquired.”

Jonathan Franzen book The Corrections

The Corrections (2001)

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“I’m not the person to ask about what’s normal,’ Denise answered. ‘I’ve mainly seen normal in the rearview mirror.”

Jonathan Franzen book The Corrections

The Corrections (2001)

Jonathan Franzen photo

“It offended his sense of proportion and economy to throw away a ninety-percent serviceable string of lights. It offended his sense of himself, because he was an individual from an age of individuals, and a string of lights was, like him, an individual thing. No matter how little the thing had cost, to throw it away was to deny its value and, by extension, the value of individuals generally: to willfully designate as trash an object that you knew wasn't trash.”

Jonathan Franzen book The Corrections

The Corrections (2001)

Jonathan Franzen photo

“It's who I am. Put somebody else's comfort ahead of my own? Go hop in a toilet to spare somebody else's feelings? That's the kinda thing you do, fella. You got everything bass ackwards. And look where it's landed you.'
'Other people ought to have more consideration.'
'You oughtta have less. Me personally, I am opposed to all strictures. If you feel it, let it rip. If you want it, go for it. Dude's gotta put his own interests first.”

Jonathan Franzen book The Corrections

The Corrections (2001)

Jonathan Franzen photo

“'What's your impression of the ship so far?' she asked. 'Is it really super authentic?'
'Well, it does seem to be floating,' Mr Söderblad said with a smile, 'in spite of heavy seas.'
Enid raised her voice to aid his comprehension. 'I mean, is it AUTHENTICALLY SCANDINAVIAN?'
'Well, yes, of course," Mr. Söderblad said. 'At the same time, everything in the world is more and more American, don't you think?'”

Jonathan Franzen book The Corrections

The Corrections (2001)

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“Nobody can ever quite say what's wrong exactly. But they all know it's evil. They all know 'corporate' is a dirty word. And if somebody's having fun or getting rich - disgusting! Evil! And it's always the death of this and the death of that. And people who think they're free aren't 'really' free. And people who think they're happy aren't 'really' happy. And it's impossible to radically critique society anymore, although what's so radically wrong with society that we need such a radical critique, nobody can say exactly…. Here things are getting better and better for women and people of color, and gay men and lesbians, more and more integrated and open, and all you can think about is some stupid, lame problem with signifiers and signifieds.”

Jonathan Franzen book The Corrections

The Corrections (2001)

Jonathan Franzen photo

“In the years when he'd worked full-time, he'd never complained about frozen or takeout or preprepared dinners. To Caroline it probably seemed that he was changing the rules on her. But to Gary it seemed that the nature of family life itself was changing - that togetherness and filiality and fraternity weren't valued the way they were when he was young.”

Jonathan Franzen book The Corrections

The Corrections (2001)

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