391 Quotes by Jonathan Franzen

The country that minutely followed every phony turn of American Idol while the world went up in flames seemed to Walter fully deserving of whatever nightmare future awaited it. He.

Yeah, well, we’re all grieving in our own way, obviously. It’s just I heard this crazy rumor about your having inherited twenty-two million dollars.” He tried to meet her eyes, but she’d turned away, squeezing her thumbs, fists balled. “Crazy, huh? But getting back to this lunch, let’s see, Mr. Aldren and whatever his name is, Tweedledum, they had steak, right? And Mr. Stoorhuys – ” He snapped his fingers. “Rabbit. Half a rabbit, grilled. Or what do you call it? Braised.

You need closeness with other people. And how is closeness built? By sharing secrets. Colleen.

There is, after all, a kind of happiness in unhappiness, if it’s the right unhappiness.

She has embarrassingly inquired, of her children, whether there’s a woman in his life, and has rejoiced at hearing no. Not because she doesn’t want him to be happy, not because she has any right or even much inclination to be jealous anymore, but because it means there’s some shadow of a chance that he still thinks, as she does more than ever, that they were not just the worst thing that ever happened to each other, they were also the best thing.

Sometimes I think my life is nothing but one long process of bodily betrayal.

Her heart was full and her senses were sharp, but her head felt liable to burst in the vacuum of her solitude.

It’sthe fate of most Ping-Pong tables in home basements eventually to serve the ends of other, more desperate games.

Wasn’t asking for a recipe supposed to be good coin of the feminine realm?