Imagine that human existence is defined by an Ache: the Ache of our not being, each of us, the center of the universe; of our desires forever outnumbering our means of satisfying them. Jonathan Franzen More Quotes by Jonathan Franzen More Quotes From Jonathan Franzen Brooklyn was like Philadelphia made better by its proximity to Manhattan. Jonathan Franzen brooklyn manhattan philadelphia We may freak out globally, but we suffer locally. Jonathan Franzen freak suffering may The human species was given dominion over the earth and took the opportunity to exterminate other species and warm the atmosphere and generally ruin things in its own image, but it paid this price for its privileges: that the finite and specific animal body of this species contained a brain capable of conceiving the infinite and wishing to be infinite itself. Jonathan Franzen atmosphere opportunity animal ...She felt that nothing could kill her hope now, nothing. She was seventy-five and she was going to make some changes in her life. Jonathan Franzen seventies five felt Since our technology is really just an extension of ourselves, we don’t have to have contempt for its manipulability in the way we might with actual people. It’s all one big endless loop. We like the mirror and the mirror likes us. To friend a person is merely to include the person in our private hall of flattering mirrors. Jonathan Franzen technology mirrors people There is, after all, a kind of happiness in unhappiness, if it's the right unhappiness. Jonathan Franzen unhappiness heartbreak kind There's a hazardous sadness to the first sounds of someone else's work in the morning; it's as if stillness experiences pain in being broken. Jonathan Franzen sadness pain morning Readers and writers are united in their need for solitude, in their pursuit of substance in a time of ever-increasing evanescence: in their reach inward, via print, for a way out of loneliness. Jonathan Franzen solitude loneliness needs Walter had never liked cats. They'd seemed to him the sociopaths of the pet world, a species domesticated as an evil necessary for the control of rodents and subsequently fetishized the way unhappy countries fetishize their militaries, saluting the uniforms of killers as cat owners stroke their animals' lovely fur and forgive their claws and fangs. He'd never seen anything in a cat's face but simpering incuriosity and self-interest; you only had to tease one with a mouse-toy to see where it's true heart lay...cats were all about using people Jonathan Franzen using-people heart country Nothing got inside the head without becoming pictures. Jonathan Franzen cold-night cider becoming The novelist has more and more to say to readers who have less and less time to read: where to find the energy to engage a culture in crisis when the crisis consists in the impossibility of engaging with the culture? Jonathan Franzen novelists energy culture Expecting a novel to bear the weight of our whole disturbed society—to help solve our contemporary problems—seems to me a peculiarly American delusion. To write sentences of such authenticity that refuge can be taken in them: isn't this enough? Isn't it a lot? Jonathan Franzen taken weight writing Reading enables me to maintain a sense of something substantive– my ethical integrity, my intellectual integrity. Jonathan Franzen intellectual reading integrity And when the event, the big change in your life, is simply an insight-- isn't that a strange thing? That absolutely nothing changes except that you see things differently and you're less fearful and less anxious and generally stronger as a result: isn't it amazing that a completely invisible thing in your head can feel realer than anything you've experienced before? Jonathan Franzen stronger strange events It was a way of recognizing places of enchantment: people falling asleep like this. Jonathan Franzen enchantment people fall His tiredness hurt so much it kept him awake. Jonathan Franzen hurt-so-much awake hurt Without privacy there was no point in being an individual. Jonathan Franzen no-point individual privacy To me, the point of a novel is to take you to a still place. You can multitask with a lot of things, but you can’t really multitask reading a book. Jonathan Franzen novel reading book He had a happy canine way of seeking approval without seeming insecure. Jonathan Franzen insecure approval way Our lives look a lot more interesting when they’re filtered through the sexy Facebook interface. We star in our own movies, we photograph ourselves incessantly, we click the mouse and a machine confirms our sense of mastery. Jonathan Franzen sexy stars interesting
