361 Quotes by Jennifer Egan

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?

He was of no more consequence than an empty cigarette packet.

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

All that love, all that pain, all the stuff people feel – not just me and you, brother, but everyone, everyone who’s ever walked this beautiful green planet – how can all that disappear when somebody dies? It can’t disappear, it’s too big. Too strong, too... permanent. So it moves to another frequency, where the human ear can’t pick up.

I’ve never been that confident. I don’t tend to think, swaggeringly, I’m going to ace this. It’s just not who I am.

He liked the thought that his own power would one day be refined into translucence, with no memory of the blood and earth that had generated it.

Oh we’ll know each other forever, Bix says. The days of losing touch are almost gone.

Cheating is like a girl’s maidenhead. Doesn’t matter if she’s done it once or a hundred times; she’s ruined just the same.

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.