That’s how people live, by telling stories. What’s the first thing a kid says when he learns how to talk? “Tell me a story.” That’s how we understand who we are, where we come from. Stories are everything. Jeffrey Eugenides More Quotes by Jeffrey Eugenides More Quotes From Jeffrey Eugenides 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 growing-up suicide book At night the cries of cats making love or fighting, their caterwauling in the dark, told us that the world was pure emotion, flung back and forth among its creatures, the agony of the one-eyed Siamese no different from that of the Lisbon girls, and even the trees plunged in feeling. Jeffrey Eugenides cat girl dark I was aware that you weren't supposed to write about suburbia, that it was undignified in some way, the subject matter not momentous enough. And so, for a long time, that kept me from writing about it. But once I began, I realized it was just as interesting as anywhere else. Jeffrey Eugenides writing long interesting I'd like to have a word for 'the sadness inspired by failing restaurants' as well as for 'the excitement of getting a room with a minibar. Jeffrey Eugenides excitement sadness rooms I've never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I've entered my story, I need them more than ever. Jeffrey Eugenides right-words stories needs I always work in a room where there's no Internet to keep from being distracted so easily. Jeffrey Eugenides internet technology rooms I know that attaching memories to books may be going out of the world, but while it lasts, it's a strong record of your life. Jeffrey Eugenides strong memories book 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 fate gay new-york My goal in life is to become an adjective. Jeffrey Eugenides adjectives goal life-is They made us participate in their own madness, because we couldn't help but retrace their steps, rethink their thoughts, and see that none of them led to us. Jeffrey Eugenides steps depression helping Basically you come up with the fictional idea and you start writing that story, but then in order to write it and to make it seem real, you sometimes put your own memories in. Even if it's a character that's very different from you. Jeffrey Eugenides real writing memories No matter how long your've been at it, you always start from scratch. Jeffrey Eugenides scratches writing long I was unemployable when I got out of college. Jeffrey Eugenides college I think it is important to remind people of the extent of our free will. Jeffrey Eugenides important people thinking You went out with a girl at first because the sheer sight of her made you weak in the knees. You fell in love and were desperate not to let her get away. And yet the more you thought about her, the less you knew who she was. The hope was that love transcended all differences. That was the hope. Jeffrey Eugenides differences girl sight We Greeks are a moody people. Suicide makes sense to us. Putting up Christmas lights after your own daughter does it--that makes no sense. What my yia yia could never understand about America was why everyone pretended to be happy all the time.” -Mrs. Karafilis Jeffrey Eugenides daughter light suicide 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 drink dresses depression For the eternity that Lux Lisbon looked at him, Trip Fontaine looked back, and the love he felt at that moment, truer than all subsequent loves because it never had to survive real life, still plagued him, even now in the desert, with his looks and health wasted. 'You never know what'll set the memory off,' he told us. 'A baby's face. A bell on a cat's collar. Anything.' They didn't exchange a single word. But in the weeks that followed, Trip spent his days wandering the halls, hoping for Lux to appear, the most naked person with clothes on he had ever seen. Jeffrey Eugenides real baby memories It's often said that a traumatic experience early in life marks a person forever, pulls her out of line, saying, "Stay there. Don't move. Jeffrey Eugenides lines forever moving 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 girl suicide mean
