455 Quotes by Dave Eggers

The weird thing is that working within an established story was actually kind of liberating. You know the beginning and middle and end, more or less, so there’s less pressure to figure all that out.

But of course there’s no logic to San Francisco generally, a city built with putty and pipe cleaners, rubber cement and colored construction paper. It’s the work of fairies, elves, happy children with new crayons.

Your tools have elevated gossip, hearsay and conjecture to the level of valid, mainstream communication.

How lame this is, how small, terrible. Or maybe it is beautiful. I can’t decide if what I am doing is beautiful and noble and right, or small and disgusting.

When I’m doing work online or on the computer, it’s one thing. When I want to read, I want to go elsewhere, and I want to be away from the screen.

We discuss calling the police. We have to quickly review anything that could go wrong if we do. Are our immigration papers in order? They are. Do we have outstanding parking tickets? I have three, Achor Achor two. We calculate whether or not we have enough in checking accounts to pay the tickets if the police demand it. We decide that we do.

They clearly see through the whole thing, that we are using this to get exposure, to prove to all and ourselves that we are real, that we like everyone else simply want our lives on tape, proven, feel that what we are doing only becomes real once is has been entered into the record.

The heat was alive, predatory.

The last step was convincing the customer to pay for it. A customer accustomed to a two-dollar cup of coffee will startle at the idea of paying five dollars for a cup of direct-trade Ethiopian coffee. But if the customer knows that five dollars is the actual price that cup of coffee should be – the correct price to ensure that everyone involved in bringing that cup of coffee into existence is being treated humanely and given a chance to live with dignity – would that customer balk or step up?