Quotes by Jennifer Egan

And then I notice the music flooding out of every part of the apartment at once — the couch, the walls, even the floor — and I know Bennies alone in Lou’s studio, pouring music down around us. A minute ago it was “Don’t Let Me Down”. Then it was Blondie’s “Heart of Glass”. Now it’s Iggy Pop’s “The Passenger”. Listening, I think, You will never know how much I understand you.

Hes rigged a tiny cassette player with a small set of foam earphones to listen to demo tapes and rough mixes. Occasionally hell hand the device to Mindy, wanting her opinion, and each time, the experience of music pouring directly against her eardrums - hers alone - is a shock that makes her eyes well up; the privacy of it, the way it transforms her surroundings into a golden montage, as if she were looking back on this lark in Africa with Lou from some distant future.

Das mine! protested Ava, Bennies daughter, affirming Alexs recent theory that language acquisition involved a phase of speaking German. She snatched a plastic skillet away from his own daughter, Cara-Ann, who lurched after it, roaring, Mine pot! Mine pot!

Sashas green eyes were right up against yours, the lashes interlocking. In Naples, she said, there were kids who were just lost. You knew they were never going to get back to what theyd been, or have a normal life. And then there were other ones who you thought, maybe they will....You opened your eyes, which you hadnt realized were shut again. what Im saying is, Were the survivors, Sasha said....Not everyone is. But we are. Okay?

You can do it alone. But its going to be so much harder.

Oh well know each other for forever Bix said. The days of losing touch are almost gone. What does that mean? Drew asks.Were going to meet again in a different place, Bix said. Everyone weve lost, well find. Or theyll find us.

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

Rebecca was an academic star. Her new book was on the phenomenon of word casings, a term shed invented for words that no longer had meaning outside quotation marks. English was full of these empty words--friend and real and story and change--words that had been shucked of their meanings and reduced to husks. Some, like identity and search and cloud, had clearly been drained of life by their Web usage. With others, the reasons were more complex; how had American become an ironic term? How had democracy come to be used in an arch, mocking way?

Kathy was a Republican, one of those people who used the unforgivable phrase meant to be--usually when describing her own good fortune or the disasters that had befallen other people.

The sky was electric blue above the trees but the yard felt dark. Stephanie went to the edge of the lawn and sat her forehead on her knees. The grass and soil were still warm from the day. She wanted to cry but she couldnt. The feeling was too deep.

But Phoebe loved her mother best as she was now, wistful, out-of-step, her laugh tinged always with sadness, as if things were only funny in spite of themselves.

I’m sorry and I believe in you and I’ll always be near you, protecting you, and I will never leave you, I’ll be curled around your heart for the rest of your life.

I would lie of course. I lied a lot and with good reason: to protect the truth—safeguard it like wearing fake gems to keep the real ones from getting stolen or cheapened by overuse. I guarded what truths I possessed because information was not a thing—it was colorless odorless shapeless and therefore indestructible. There was no way to retrieve or void it no way to halt its proliferation. Telling someone a secret was like storing plutonium inside a sandwich bag the information would inevitably outlive the friendship or love or trust in which you’d placed it. And then you would have given it away.

I haven’t had writer’s block. I think it’s because my process involves writing very badly.

But Bennie knew that what he was bringing into the world was shit. Too clear, too clean. The problem was precision, perfection; the problem was digitization, which sucked the life out of everything that got smeared through its microscopic mesh. Film, photography, music: dead. An aesthetic holocaust! Bennie knew better than to say this stuff aloud.

They resumed walking. Alex felt an ache in his eyes and throat. I dont know what happened to me, he said, shaking his head. I honestly dont.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 think ethical ambivalence is a kind of innoculation, a way of excusing yourself in advance for something you actually want to do. No offense.

A frenzy of activity that had mostly led him in circles: wasnt that a fairly accurate description of lust?

A frenzy of activity that had mostly led him in circles: wasnt that a fairly accurate description of lust? At times Bennie didnt 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?

If I had a view like this to look down on every day, I would have the energy and inspiration to conquer the world. The trouble is, when you most need such a view, no one gives it to you.