[I]t may be that a crowd at a particular moment of history creates the object to justify its gathering.

Jennifer Egan

Categorized in : May Gathering Crowds

If I had a view like this to look down on every day, I would have the energy and inspiration to conquer the world. The trouble is, when you most need such a view, no one gives it to you.

conquer-the-world inspiration views

Read at the level at which you want to write. Reading is the nourishment that feeds the kind of writing you want to do.

levels reading writing

I don’t want to fade away, I want to flame away - I want my death to be an attraction, a spectacle, a mystery. A work of art.

flames life art

I wonder what Proust would have made of our present-day locus of collective fantasy, the Internet. I’m guessing he would have seized on its wistful aspect, pointing out gently and with wry humor that much of what beguiles us is the act of reaching for what isn’t there.

proust guessing fantasy

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.

technology two years

Reading is the nourishment that lets you do interesting work. by Jennifer Egan

Reading is the nourishment that lets you do interesting work.

nourishment reading interesting

I haven’t had trouble with writer’s block. I think it’s because my process involves writing very badly. My first drafts are filled with lurching, clichéd writing, outright flailing around. Writing that doesn’t have a good voice or any voice. But then there will be good moments. It seems writer’s block is often a dislike of writing badly and waiting for writing better to happen.

block writing thinking

I'm very interested in the way the Internet has changed teenage life. Obviously it's very different from when I grew up, when there weren't even answering machines, much less computers. I was telling my children this the other day, and the little one said, "Did you have electricity, Mom?" and I was like okay, enough, kid.

teenage mom children

Sometimes I imagine myself looking back on right now and I think like where will I be standing when I look back Will right now look like the beginning of a great life or... or what

sometimes looks thinking

Redemption, transformation--God how she wanted these things. Every day, every minute. Didn't everyone?

redemption transformation worry

The answers were maddeningly absent—it was like trying to remember a song that you knew made you feel a certain way, without a title, artist, or even a few bars to bring it back.

artist song trying

I'm always happy," Sasha said. "Sometimes I just forget. by Jennifer Egan

I'm always happy," Sasha said. "Sometimes I just forget.

said forget sometimes

The pause makes you think the song will end. And then the song isn't really over, so you're relieved. But then the song does actually end, because every song ends, obviously, and THAT. TIME. THE. END. IS. FOR. REAL.

music real song

There are so many ways to go wrong. All we've got are metaphors, and they're never exactly right. You can never just Say. The. Thing.

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.

intellectual ideas needs

Because you can't write habitually and well all the time, you have to be willing to write badly. That's how you get the regularity that enables you to be present for the good stuff.

regularity stuff writing

I've never been that confident. I don't tend to think, swaggeringly, I'm going to ace this. It's just not who I am.

aces who-i-am thinking

I think the one thing that's changed over time is that I've come to realise, as a fiction writer, the fact that I don't think it will work out, doesn't mean that it actually won't.

work-out mean thinking

One area I have a huge amount of trouble in is writing about myself. I get a heavy, almost depressed feeling.

trouble feelings writing

The bottom line is that I like my first drafts to be blind, unconscious, messy efforts; that's what gets me the best material.

effort lines firsts