Jennifer Egan Quotes

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Jennifer Egan

Profession : Novelist

Birth : September 7, 1962

It's our job as fiction writers to provide a delight that nothing else can - to such a degree that people have no choice but to read our work. Now that's a very tall order, if not impossible. But why not try?

Jennifer Egan

I write to escape from my life. Writing about men separates 'me' from my work in a way that I find comforting.

Jennifer Egan

I guess my comfort zone as a writer is diametrically opposed to my comfort zone as a human being.

Jennifer Egan

Training readers to expect a voice or subject matter from me would interfere with the reinvention I crave. At the same time, I feel almost too able to disappear at times.

Jennifer Egan

I grew up as a step-kid, always a little outside, always trying hard to follow and fit in. But over time, I've come to feel that my tendency toward self-erasure is a deep and real part of me. I think I'd be this way no matter how I grew up.

Jennifer Egan

I wasn't a kid who wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be a doctor. I was kind of morbid. I was really into the body and how it could go wrong. I wanted to dig up bodies from the graveyard.

Jennifer Egan

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.

Jennifer Egan

Sometimes I forget I have children, which is very strange. I feel guilty about it, as if my inattention will cause something to happen to them, even when I'm not responsible for them - that God will punish me.

Jennifer Egan

My first attempt at writing a novel was horrible. I had to throw it away. But I stuck with the idea, which is what became 'The Invisible Circus.'

Jennifer Egan

My mom used to say that if someone woke her up in the middle of the night and asked how old she was, she'd answer 27. Hearing her, I'd think, 'That's ridiculous; your job as my mom is to be old.'

Jennifer Egan

Sometimes I'll watch teenagers and find myself not quite believing I'm older than they are - even wondering, delusionally, if they can see any difference between us.

Jennifer Egan

I'm not sure if the passage of time affects our core identities so much as reveals them to us.

Jennifer Egan

I number my drafts, and by the time a book is done, I'll have 75 or 80 drafts of some sections.

Jennifer Egan

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.

Jennifer Egan

Between books, I have to throw out everything I did before, because the tools I've used to write the previous book will not only not work for the next project, they will ruin it.

Jennifer Egan

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!

Jennifer Egan