Jonathan Franzen Quotes

I defy anyone to finish Halldor Laxness's 'Independent People' without wetting the pages with tears.

Jonathan Franzen

• People
• Independent
• Tears

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Quotes to Explore

• I'm so intrigued by women throughout history where the significance of what they were representing at that time is obscured by the fact a man saved them or they were prostitutes.

  

  Zoe Saldana
  • Time
  • Women
  • History

• I wrote seven Myron Bolitar novels in a row, and I never want to write a Myron book where he just solves a crime. Every one of them I want to be personal, and I want him to grow and change. The problem with that is, it makes the series limited, you can't write a series where a guy is always going through some kind of crisis.

  

  Harlan Coben
  • Book
  • Guy
  • Change

• I don't like the blame game, though.

  

  Barbara Bush
  • Game
  • Like
  • Blame

• I really like using the softening cream. It helps me go out there with confidence to do what I need to do, and at the same time, it's very functional and helps keep the hair out of my mouth so I can focus on pitching.

  

  Jacob deGrom
  • Time
  • Focus
  • Hair

• We need to consider nominations as thoroughly and carefully as the American people deserve. No one is entitled to a free pass to a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.

  

  Patrick Leahy
  • People
  • American
  • Free

• I'm old enough to remember the end of World War II. On Aug. 14, 1946, a year after the Japanese were defeated, most newspapers and magazines had single articles commemorating the end of the war.

  

  Harry Browne
  • World
  • Remember
  • War

• I'm a chubby middle-aged white guy with short hair. I think that's it, really. I kind of have a look. Right now, I'm not fat enough to be the fat friend, but I'm not thin enough to be the leading man, so I look like a cop.

  

  Aaron Douglas
  • Guy
  • Man
  • Friend

• To be really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic in the insipid details of everyday life, is a virtue so rare as to be worthy of canonization.

  

  Harriet Beecher Stowe
  • Life
  • Great
  • Everyday

• There's such a preoccupation with liquidity and such an unwillingness to invest beyond the horizon of the next quarter and making sure that the CEOs hit their quarterly earnings.

  

  Edmund Phelps
  • Horizon
  • Invest
  • Beyond

• I'm afraid that I won't do a good job when I go into an audition.

  

  Tamala Jones
  • Good
  • Job
  • Afraid

• I like to make my name of songs strange.

  

  Flula Borg
  • Like
  • Name
  • Strange

• I make the music my ears want to hear, I wear the clothes my body wants to wear and the ones boys call me back for, and I generally make the songs that my feet dance to.

  

  Natalia Kills
  • Music
  • Dance
  • Feet

• The actors that I admire are able to step into so many different roles.

  

  Samira Wiley
  • Different
  • Step
  • Admire

• When you love something, it doesn't feel like work.

  

  Natalie Massenet
  • Work
  • Like
  • Feel

• When you look at the lyrics of 'Sometimes When We Touch,' it's really very much an adolescent song.

  

  Dan Hill
  • Song
  • Sometimes
  • Look

• My happiest memory of childhood was my first birthday in reform school. This teacher took an interest in me. In fact, he gave me the first birthday presents I ever got: a box of Cracker Jacks and a can of ABC shoe polish.

  

  Flip Wilson
  • School
  • Teacher
  • Childhood

• I think I surprise some people because a lot of the time, I roll out of bed and go to school, and it's like I don't wear anything that interesting sometimes.

  

  Tavi Gevinson
  • People
  • Time
  • School

• The very elements of what constitutes good nursing are as little understood for the well as for the sick. The same laws of health or of nursing, for they are in reality the same, obtain among the well as among the sick.

  

  Florence Nightingale
  • Good
  • Reality
  • Health

• Well, you know, Thomas Jefferson, who was the author of the Declaration of Independence said he wouldn't have any atheists in his cabinet because atheists wouldn't swear an oath to God. That was Jefferson and we have never had any Muslims in the cabinet.

  

  Pat Robertson
  • God
  • Know
  • Author

• When God comes A great noise will pierce us, The day of judgment terribly. Messengers from the door, Wind, and sea, and fire. lightning and thunder A number without flattery. The people of the world groaning Will be concealed.

  

  Taliesin
  • People
  • World
  • Great

• Idealism, unrealistic idealism, is always contrasted with the reality of the people, of the man in the street. The details of daily life are always more convincing than the political fantasies of the earlier generations.

  

  Orhan Pamuk
  • People
  • Life
  • Man

• People are attracted to your light because they want it for themselves. It's like fireflies. When we were kids in New York, we would visit my dad and catch fireflies because we were so attracted to their light. Put them in jars next to our bed, and then they'd die. Then we'd go out the next night and get another firefly. That's how people are.

  

  Karrine Steffans
  • People
  • Kids
  • Night

• In any endeavor, you have to understand your tolerance for risk. What's a failure you can afford?

  

  Christie Hefner
  • Risk
  • Failure
  • Tolerance

• I defy anyone to finish Halldor Laxness's 'Independent People' without wetting the pages with tears.

  

  Jonathan Franzen
  • People
  • Independent
  • Tears