Household objects lost meaning. A bedside clock became a hunk of molded plastic, telling something called time, in a world marking it's passage for some reason. Jeffrey Eugenides More Quotes by Jeffrey Eugenides More Quotes From Jeffrey Eugenides You used to be able to tell a person's nationality by the face. Immigration ended that. Next you discerned nationality via the footwear. Globalization ended that. Jeffrey Eugenides immigration next able To start with, look at all the books. Jeffrey Eugenides book looks Every letter was a love letter. Jeffrey Eugenides love-letter letters She was a large, disordered woman, like a child's drawing that didn't stay within the lines. Jeffrey Eugenides drawing lines children They're just memories now. Time to write them off. Jeffrey Eugenides writing memories That was when Leonard realized something crucial about depression. The smarter you were, the worse it was. The sharper your brain, the more it cut you up. Jeffrey Eugenides cutting brain depression You can tell when something's not moving forward anymore. When the doubts you have about it don't go away. Jeffrey Eugenides moving-forward doubt moving People don't save other people. People save themselves. Jeffrey Eugenides people Every letter was a love letter. Of course, as love letters went, this one could have been better. It was not very promising, for instance, that Madeleine claimed not to want to see him for the next half-century. Jeffrey Eugenides half want letters He remained heartbroken, which meant one of two things: either his love was pure and true and earthshakingly significant; or he was addicted to feeling forlorn, he liked being heartbroken. Jeffrey Eugenides heartbroken feelings two 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 grief blue night The lover`s discourse was of an extreme solitude. The solitude was extreme because it wasn`t physical. It was extreme because you felt it while in the company of the person you loved. It was extreme because it was in your head, the most solitary of places. Jeffrey Eugenides solitary solitude lovers What if you had faith and performed good works, what if you died and went to heaven, and what if all the people you met there were people you didn't like? Jeffrey Eugenides what-if heaven people Yes, you need a passport to prove to the world that you exist. The people at passport control, they cannot look at you and see you are a person. No! They have to look at a little photograph of you. Then they believe you exist. Jeffrey Eugenides believe people needs It was amazing how it worked: the tiniest bit of truth made credible the greatest lies. Jeffrey Eugenides deceit made lying 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 doctors girl years The world, a tired performer, offers us another half-assed season. Jeffrey Eugenides tired half world 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 becoming-one survival house our job was merely to create the noise that seemed to fascinate them. Jeffrey Eugenides virgin-suicides noise jobs I think there's a real connection between acting and writing novels because the way I write characters has a little bit to do with the method acting that I was taught in high school and college. Jeffrey Eugenides real writing school