504 Quotes by Jeffrey Eugenides

Added to their loveliness was a new mysterious suffering, perfectly silent, visible in the blue puffiness beneath their eyes or the way they would sometimes stop in mid-stride, look down, and shake their heads as though disagreeing with life.

All wisdom ends in paradox.

Just like ice, lives crack, too. Personalities. Identities.

What if you had faith and performed good works, what if you died and went to heaven, and what if all the people you met there were people you didn't like?

To start with, look at all the books.

Every letter was a love letter.

I went into the desert to forget about you. But the sand was the color of your hair. The desert sku was the color of your eyes. There was nowhere I could go that wouldn't be you.

She was a large, disordered woman, like a child's drawing that didn't stay within the lines.

Though at this moment she felt abused, abandoned, and ashamed of herself, Madeleine knew that she was still young, that she had her whole life ahead of her--a life in which, if she persevered, she might do something special--and that part of persevering meant getting past moments just like this one, when people made you feel small, unlovable, and took away your confidence.