Jennifer Egan Quotes

I would go so far as to say that I mostly write terrible things. I mean, my first drafts are so appalling.

Jennifer Egan

• Previous
• Next

Quotes to Explore

• I'm organized, but receipts tend to mess up my system. They're barbarians! So I store them in a notepad.

  

  Lake Bell
  • Up
  • System
  • Mess

• Just as I could tell you about my first Andre Norton novel or my first L'Engle or my first Asimov, I could write a paragraph about how each of these writers influenced me, my writing, and my thoughts, and do to this day.

  

  Pamela Dean
  • Writing
  • Day
  • Thoughts

• If I have any audience, they can know that anything I am in, I would go see, with the expectation of being really satisfied.

  

  Ian Mckellen
  • Audience
  • Expectation
  • Satisfied

• I was raised by two actors in a moment in time - the Seventies - when there was no judgment of characters, no heroes and bad guys.

  

  Laura Dern
  • Time
  • Bad
  • Moment

• History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.

  

  Karl Marx
  • History
  • First
  • Tragedy

• When I need to nail that riff to the cross, Marshall will always provide the hammer!

  

  Dan Hawkins
  • Always
  • Need
  • Hammer

• The use and threat of force, when world peace is not in danger, are no longer valid frames of reference for achieving the ends sought today by sovereign nations.

  

  Carlos Salinas de Gortari
  • World
  • Today
  • Peace

• When I started Net-a-Porter, I knew nothing. And I was pregnant. Starting a new venture and being pregnant for the first time are pretty similar in many ways. If you knew what was going to happen to you, you wouldn't venture down that road.

  

  Natalie Massenet
  • Time
  • Pretty
  • Road

• My sister said, You're making it hard for all us housewives in Nebraska.

  

  Kate Millett
  • You
  • Sister
  • Said

• It doesn't take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause.

  

  H. L. Mencken
  • Sound
  • Determined
  • Rebellion

• Success in Iraq will be a major setback for terrorists and a major asset for the security of this region. The struggle for Iraq is the struggle for the future of the world.

  

  Zalmay Khalilzad
  • World
  • Future
  • Success

• The greatest thing you'll ever learn is to love and be loved, just to love and be loved.

  

  Eden Ahbez
  • Love
  • Learn
  • Greatest

• The reason societies with democratic governments are better places to live in than their alternatives isn't because of some goodness intrinsic to democracy, but because its hopeless inefficiency helps blunt the basic potential for evil.

  

  Nathan Myhrvold
  • Live
  • Evil
  • Democracy

• I want to be successful, and I want to do good, but I also want to be myself.

  

  Mackenzie Foy
  • Good
  • Myself
  • Successful

• I was a little girl in World War II and I'm used to being freed by Americans.

  

  Madeleine Albright
  • World
  • War
  • Girl

• With young people, I always say, 'You're not doing anyone any favours by withholding your power.' As women, we do that a lot because we are afraid of being misunderstood or perceived as too strong. But the older I'm getting, the more I realise you have to let that go.

  

  Idina Menzel
  • People
  • Women
  • Power

• In my 10 years, I never put a girl that was too skinny in French 'Vogue.'

  

  Carine Roitfeld
  • Girl
  • Never
  • Years

• Never be ashamed! There's some who'll hold it against you, but they're not worth bothering with.

  

  Joanne Rowling
  • You
  • Never
  • Worth

• The people who test your patience are a blessing.. Without them, you can't practice patience.

  

  Nouman Ali Khan
  • People
  • Practice
  • Patience

• To me, the scariest movie ever made to this day is 'The Exorcist.' It still scares the living hell out of me, and it's because of the fantasy element. It's the exorcism. It's the Devil. It's not a guy breaking into your house trying to torture you or cut your whatever off. Those kinds of movies don't do it for me, and I don't call them horror.

  

  Cassandra Peterson
  • Movie
  • Devil
  • Fantasy

• It is both humiliating and humbling to discover that a single generation after the events that constructed me as a public personality, I am remembered as a hairdo.

  

  Angela Davis
  • Single
  • Personality

• I like when there are complicated relationships, that there's a little bit of self-serving parts of it as well as a devotion to a person, and that there's a mixture of both in there. It's just I think that's a little more true to life. It's not always purely one way or the other.

  

  Lisa Kudrow
  • Life
  • True
  • Person

• I think we're experiencing a resurgence of fantasy-type conventions in general because people want to get out around kindred spirits. Cons are a great place to meet people you've been tweeting and FB'ing with, and since you've had an online relationship with them, it's not like meeting for the first time.

  

  Mel Odom
  • People
  • Time
  • Great

• I would go so far as to say that I mostly write terrible things. I mean, my first drafts are so appalling.

  

  Jennifer Egan