361 Quotes by Jennifer Egan

If you've been around as long as I have, watching the literary scene, then you know that who's in and who's out changes by the year. It's really a very fluid situation that requires that the person who is having the good luck now isn't having it a year or two from now.

I was a stepchild in two different families. The hardest thing about being a stepchild is you know that in some way everything would be easier if you didnt exist.

In the case of 'Goon Squad,' which sold slowly for a long time despite the good reviews, those 'best of 2010' lists were pivotal, and made the book really sell.

Americans are less selfish than some of our politicians believe and will respond with reason and resilience to passionate clarity.

They resumed walking. Alex felt an ache in his eyes and throat. "I don't know what happened to me," he said, shaking his head. "I honestly don't." Bennie glanced at him, a middle-aged man with chaotic silver hair and thoughtful eyes. "You grew up, Alex," he said, "just like the rest of us.

I guess in my own life, privacy, anonymity, and the mystery of being lost are important. I also feel that people are mysterious and complex no matter what they do, and no matter how hard they try to reveal their own mystery.

And for an instant he would remember Naples: sitting with Sasha in her tiny room; the jolt of surprise and delight he'd felt when the sun finally dropped into the center of her window and was captured inside her circle of wire. Now he turned to her, grinning. Her hair and face were aflame with orange light. "See," Sasha muttered, eyeing the sun. "It's mine.

We lie. That's what we do. You're selling me a line of bullshit and you want me to sell you a line of bullshit back so you can write a major line of bullshit and be paid for 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