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Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes

But in the end it wasn’t up to me. The bigs things never are. Birth, I mean, and death. And love. And what love bequeaths to us before we’re born Picture Quote #1

But that was in the days when they expected perils to come from without, and nothing made less sense by that time than a survival room buried in a house itself becoming one big coffin Picture Quote #1

She may have looked normal on the outside, but once you’d seen her handwriting you knew she was deliciously complicated inside Picture Quote #1

I studied English literature in the honors program, which means that you had to take courses in various centuries. You had to start with Old English, Middle English, and work your way toward the modern. I figured if I did that it would force me to read some of the things I might not read on my own Picture Quote #1

We’re all well-acquainted with depression, we all know what the low moods are, but the mania was not something I knew much about. I didn’t know that it would make someone dress extravagantly or start to pun, and to stay up and drink Picture Quote #1

Well, marriage doesn’t function in the way it used to in terms of deciding our fate, but it’s in our heads, and it determines a lot of our actions. Like, right now, if you think about gay marriage - and they just started having the first gay marriages in New York - it shows what a potent idea marriage remains for people Picture Quote #1

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The daily act of writing remains as demanding and maddening as it was before, and the pleasure you get from writing - rare but profound - remains at the true heart of the enterprise. On their best days, writers all over the world are winning Pulitzers, all alone in their studios, with no one watching Picture Quote #1

Jacques Derrida is a very important thinker and philosopher who has made serious contributions to both philosophy and literary criticism. Roland Barthes is the one I feel most affinity for, and Michel Foucault, well, his writing influenced my novel, ‘Middlesex.’ Picture Quote #1

The Statue of Liberty’s gender changed nothing. It was the same here as anywhere: men and their wars Picture Quote #1

Basically what we have here is a dreamer. Somebody out of touch with reality. When she jumped, she probably thought she’d fly Picture Quote #1

The girls took into their own hands decisions better left to God. They became too powerful to live among us, too self-concerned, too visionary, too blind Picture Quote #1

All of a sudden America wasn’t about hamburgers and hot rods anymore. It was about the Mayflower and Plymouth Rock. It was about something that had happened for two minutes four hundred years ago, instead of everything that had happened since. Instead of everything that was happening now! Picture Quote #1

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Is there anything as incredible as the love story of your own parents? Anything as hard to grasp as the fact that those two over-the-hill players, permanently on the disabled list, were once in the starting lineup? It’s impossible to imagine my father, who in my experience was aroused mainly by the lowering of interest rates, suffering the acute, adolescent passions of the flesh Picture Quote #1

Planning is for the world’s great cities, for Paris, London, and Rome, for cities dedicated, at some level, to culture. Detroit, on the other hand, was an American city and therefore dedicated to money, and so design had given way to expediency Picture Quote #1

The mind self-edits. The mind airbrushes. It’s a different thing to be inside a body than outside. From outside, you can look, inspect, compare. From inside there is no comparison Picture Quote #1

The trees like lungs filling with air My sister, the mean one, pulling my hair Picture Quote #1

They thought depression was like bieng ‘depressed’. They thought it was like being in a bad mood, only worse. Therefore, they tried to get him to snap out of it Picture Quote #1

It was the combination of many factors... With most people, suicide is like Russian roulette. Only one chamber has a bullet. With the Lisbon girls, the gun was loaded. A bullet for family abuse. A bullet for genetic predisposition. A bullet for historical malaise. A bullet for inevitable momentum. The other two bullets are impossible to name, but that doesn’t mean the chambers were empty Picture Quote #1

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I approach writing female characters the same why I approach writing male characters. I never think I’m writing about women, I think I’m writing about one woman, one person. And I try to imagine what she is like, and endow her with a lot of my own thoughts and history Picture Quote #1

I think the suicides in my first book came from the idea of growing up in Detroit. If you grow up in a city like that you feel everything is perishing, evanescent and going away very quickly Picture Quote #1

Normality wasn’t normal. It couldn’t be. If normality were normal, everybody could leave it alone. They could sit back and let normality manifest itself Picture Quote #1

It was a recession when I graduated, but I was so unequipped to have a job anyway, I don’t think it would have mattered if the economy was booming. I think I was expecting bad jobs. But as it went on through my 20s, I began to wonder how things were going to turn out Picture Quote #1

What are you doing here, honey? You’re not even old enough to know how bad life gets. (...) Obviously, Doctor, she said, you’ve never been a thirteen-year-old girl Picture Quote #1

The book has many different characteristics: some are extremely old-fashioned storytelling traits, but there are also a fair number of postmodern traits, and the self-consciousness is one Picture Quote #1

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But I care about the reader, and I’m trying to keep the reader’s attention for as long as I can Picture Quote #1

She lost much of her appetite. At night, an invisible hand kept shaking her awake every few hours. Grief was physiological, a disturbance of the blood. Sometimes a whole minute would pass in nameless dread - the bedside clock ticking, the blue moonlight coating the window like glue - before she`d remember the brutal fact that had caused it Picture Quote #1

He knew a lot about his grandparents - and perhaps he feels he’s been endowed with abilities to go into people’s heads who are long dead - but, to a certain extent, he’s making it up Picture Quote #1

She was a large, disordered woman, like a child’s drawing that didn’t stay within the lines Picture Quote #1

I spend most of every day writing. I like to write every day if I can. I don’t start extremely early Picture Quote #1

When we asked him to sum up his impression of the girls’ emotional state at that point, he said, Buffeted but not broken Picture Quote #1

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Friendship Quotes

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Text Quotes

But in the end it wasn’t up to me. The bigs things never are. Birth, I mean, and death. And love. And what love bequeaths to us before we’re born (Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes) But that was in the days when they expected perils to come from without, and nothing made less sense by that time than a survival room buried in a house itself becoming one big coffin (Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes) She may have looked normal on the outside, but once you’d seen her handwriting you knew she was deliciously complicated inside (Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes) I studied English literature in the honors program, which means that you had to take courses in various centuries. You had to start with Old English, Middle English, and work your way toward the modern. I figured if I did that it would force me to read some of the things I might not read on my own (Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes) We’re all well-acquainted with depression, we all know what the low moods are, but the mania was not something I knew much about. I didn’t know that it would make someone dress extravagantly or start to pun, and to stay up and drink (Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes) Well, marriage doesn’t function in the way it used to in terms of deciding our fate, but it’s in our heads, and it determines a lot of our actions. Like, right now, if you think about gay marriage - and they just started having the first gay marriages in New York - it shows what a potent idea marriage remains for people (Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes) The daily act of writing remains as demanding and maddening as it was before, and the pleasure you get from writing - rare but profound - remains at the true heart of the enterprise. On their best days, writers all over the world are winning Pulitzers, all alone in their studios, with no one watching (Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes) Jacques Derrida is a very important thinker and philosopher who has made serious contributions to both philosophy and literary criticism. Roland Barthes is the one I feel most affinity for, and Michel Foucault, well, his writing influenced my novel, ‘Middlesex.’ (Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes) The Statue of Liberty’s gender changed nothing. It was the same here as anywhere: men and their wars (Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes) Basically what we have here is a dreamer. Somebody out of touch with reality. When she jumped, she probably thought she’d fly (Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes) The girls took into their own hands decisions better left to God. They became too powerful to live among us, too self-concerned, too visionary, too blind (Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes) All of a sudden America wasn’t about hamburgers and hot rods anymore. It was about the Mayflower and Plymouth Rock. It was about something that had happened for two minutes four hundred years ago, instead of everything that had happened since. Instead of everything that was happening now! (Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes) Is there anything as incredible as the love story of your own parents? Anything as hard to grasp as the fact that those two over-the-hill players, permanently on the disabled list, were once in the starting lineup? It’s impossible to imagine my father, who in my experience was aroused mainly by the lowering of interest rates, suffering the acute, adolescent passions of the flesh (Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes) Planning is for the world’s great cities, for Paris, London, and Rome, for cities dedicated, at some level, to culture. Detroit, on the other hand, was an American city and therefore dedicated to money, and so design had given way to expediency (Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes) The mind self-edits. The mind airbrushes. It’s a different thing to be inside a body than outside. From outside, you can look, inspect, compare. From inside there is no comparison (Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes) The trees like lungs filling with air My sister, the mean one, pulling my hair (Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes) They thought depression was like bieng ‘depressed’. They thought it was like being in a bad mood, only worse. Therefore, they tried to get him to snap out of it (Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes) It was the combination of many factors... With most people, suicide is like Russian roulette. Only one chamber has a bullet. With the Lisbon girls, the gun was loaded. A bullet for family abuse. A bullet for genetic predisposition. A bullet for historical malaise. A bullet for inevitable momentum. The other two bullets are impossible to name, but that doesn’t mean the chambers were empty (Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes) I approach writing female characters the same why I approach writing male characters. I never think I’m writing about women, I think I’m writing about one woman, one person. And I try to imagine what she is like, and endow her with a lot of my own thoughts and history (Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes) I think the suicides in my first book came from the idea of growing up in Detroit. If you grow up in a city like that you feel everything is perishing, evanescent and going away very quickly (Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes) Normality wasn’t normal. It couldn’t be. If normality were normal, everybody could leave it alone. They could sit back and let normality manifest itself. (Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes) It was a recession when I graduated, but I was so unequipped to have a job anyway, I don’t think it would have mattered if the economy was booming. I think I was expecting bad jobs. But as it went on through my 20s, I began to wonder how things were going to turn out. (Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes) What are you doing here, honey? You’re not even old enough to know how bad life gets. (...) Obviously, Doctor, she said, you’ve never been a thirteen-year-old girl. (Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes) The book has many different characteristics: some are extremely old-fashioned storytelling traits, but there are also a fair number of postmodern traits, and the self-consciousness is one. (Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes) But I care about the reader, and I’m trying to keep the reader’s attention for as long as I can. (Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes) She lost much of her appetite. At night, an invisible hand kept shaking her awake every few hours. Grief was physiological, a disturbance of the blood. Sometimes a whole minute would pass in nameless dread - the bedside clock ticking, the blue moonlight coating the window like glue - before she`d remember the brutal fact that had caused it. (Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes) He knew a lot about his grandparents - and perhaps he feels he’s been endowed with abilities to go into people’s heads who are long dead - but, to a certain extent, he’s making it up. (Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes) She was a large, disordered woman, like a child’s drawing that didn’t stay within the lines. (Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes) I spend most of every day writing. I like to write every day if I can. I don’t start extremely early. (Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes) When we asked him to sum up his impression of the girls’ emotional state at that point, he said, Buffeted but not broken. (Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes)

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