361 Quotes by Jennifer Egan

A frenzy of activity that had mostly led him in circles: wasn't that a fairly accurate description of lust?

A frenzy of activity that had mostly led him in circles: wasn't that a fairly accurate description of lust? At times Bennie didn't even mind its disappearance; it was sort of a relief not to be constantly wanting to fuck someone. The world was unquestionably a more peaceful place without the half hard-on that had been his constant companion since the age of thirteen, but did Bennie want to live in such a world?

Even the financial disclosure statements that political bloggers were required to post hadn't stemmed the suspicion that people's opinions weren't really their own. "Who's paying you?" was a retort that might follow any bout of enthusiasm, along with laughter - who would let themselves be bought?

He was sliding into the city's knotty entrails, a poor, untouristed area where the sound of flapping laundry mingled with the bristly chatter of pigeons' wings. Without warning, Sasha pivoted around to face him. She stared, bewildered, into his face. 'Is that?' she stammered. 'Uncle—' 'My God! Sasha!' Ted cried, wildly mugging surprise. He was a lousy fake." (p. 213)

[I]t may be that a crowd at a particular moment of history creates the object to justify its gathering.

There’s a fine line between thinking about somebody and thinking about not thinking about somebody, but I have the patience and the self-control to walk that line for hours—days, if I have to.

We're the survivors. Not everyone is. But we are.

some mornings... I sit at the kitchen table shaking salt into the hairs on my arm, and a feeling shoves up in me: it's finished. Everything went past without me.

He’d chanced upon his favorite hour: A premonition of dawn without any visible sign of it.