Jennifer Egan Quotes
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I'm embarrassed to say this, but I shy away from memoirs. My feeling is always that I'm saving them for later, so I guess that means I'll reach a point when I read nothing else.
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If you read novels of the 19th century, they're pretty experimental. They take lots of chances; they seem to break a lot of rules. You've got omniscient narrators lecturing at times to the reader in first person. If you go back to the earliest novels, this is happening to a wild extent, like 'Tristram Shandy' or 'Don Quixote'.
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Music makes time fall away like almost nothing else. You hear a song from another moment of your life, and it really is like you're still there.
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After 9/11, the U.S. seemed vulnerable for the first time in a long time. We were no longer the superpower that no other country could touch. I thought, 'When and how did that dominance begin?'
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I'm just interested in serialization in fiction. I'm fascinated by it. I love the 19th-century novels. I'm interested in ways to bring that back to fiction.
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The sheer sensory experience of San Francisco is unlike anywhere else. Not just the physical beauty, but the textures, the feel, the wind, the ocean. It's a monumental feeling unrivaled by anywhere else. Its a world class, gorgeous city. And the coffee is great.
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I love how close New York is to Europe; I love the seasons, and I don't think I could live without them. They're the way I track the passage of time.
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Like many people of my generation, I feel like I survived my adolescent mischief only by a miracle, and it seems too much to hope for that the same miracle would befall my children - therefore, I want to make sure they take fewer chances than I did.
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I think a playful critique is good for all of us, and that's basically how I see satire functioning. But I'm not interested in a kind of contemptuous satirical vision; I try always, even when I'm knowingly being satirical, to also be humane, but I mean, let's face it: there's plenty in American life to make fun of, and we all participate in it.
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I find myself thinking more about the past as I get older... maybe because there's just more of it to think about. At the same time, I'm less haunted by it than I was as a younger person. I guess that's probably the ideal: to reach a point where you have access to all of your memories, but you don't feel victimized by them.
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I grew up thinking you're either a winner in the world, or you're not. I presumed I was not. I had no reason to think I would be, and my inclination is towards self-deprecation. I wish I'd known no one was judging my every move, but I'm still like this!
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Technology makes everyone feel old. A laptop is old after two years. Someone always has something newer. Everyone seems to feel obsolete now, even the young.
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The part of the process that's exciting to me is feeling like I'm in a place I've never been before, in every way. Without that, I don't know if I'd be a writer.
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That American confidence is more alive and well than it should be, to this day. But it's such a problem. There's a blindness to that confidence, a presumption that what's good for me is good for you. No! That's what teenagers think: the world revolves around them. As a nation, we've got to stop thinking that way. We're getting too old for that.
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I don't really know where my ideas come from. I start with a time and a place. That's what I need to get started, and an intellectual question.
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I knew as far back as 2001 that I would write a book called 'A Visit From the Goon Squad,' though I had no idea what kind of book it would be.
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You can start imagining all kinds of things characters would feel, but you have to have a sense of whether those imaginings might be right.
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Proust, my big inspiration for 'Goon Squad,' uses music a lot in his novel, both in terms of plot and structure. I liked the idea of doing the same thing, which is one reason I structured 'Goon Squad' as a record album, with an A side and a B side, that's built around the contrasting sounds of the individual numbers in it.
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If you don't have people that the reader cares about and stories that are gripping, you've got nothing.
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In a way, I started 'Goon Squad' not even realizing I was writing a book. I thought I was just writing a few stories to stall before starting this other book that I wanted to write - or thought I wanted to write: I still haven't written it.
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I write totally spontaneously. I actually write fiction by hand - that always seems to startle people. I think the reason I do that is to bypass the thinking part of me and get to the more unconscious part, which is where all the good ideas seem to be.
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When I'm not writing, I feel an awareness that something's missing. If I go a long time, it becomes worse. I become depressed. There's something vital that's not happening.
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One area I have a huge amount of trouble in is writing about myself. I get a heavy, almost depressed feeling.
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I grew up in the 1970s, and my friends and I felt very keenly that we had missed the '60s. We were bummed out about it.