The bottom line is that I like my first drafts to be blind, unconscious, messy efforts; that's what gets me the best material. Jennifer Egan More Quotes by Jennifer Egan More Quotes From Jennifer Egan Americans are less selfish than some of our politicians believe and will respond with reason and resilience to passionate clarity. Jennifer Egan resilience selfish believe Time’s a goon, right? You gonna let that goon push you around?” Scotty shook his head. “The goon won. Jennifer Egan goons scotty time Like all failed experiments, that one taught me something I didn’t expect: one key ingredient of so-called experience is the delusional faith that it is unique and special, that those included in it are privileged and those excluded from it are missing out. Jennifer Egan unique keys life 'Look at Me' started with Rockford, Illinois and New York and the question of how much image culture was changing our inner lives. That's an abstract idea; you don't think that's going to be a rocking work of fiction, but it seemed to fuse in a way that was interesting. Jennifer Egan new-york ideas thinking I think ethical ambivalence is a kind of innoculation, a way of excusing yourself in advance for something you actually want to do. No offense. Jennifer Egan want way thinking Being somewhere but not completely: that was home for Danny. . . . All he needed was a cellphone or I-access, or both at once, or even just a plan to leave wherever he was and go someplace else really really soon. Jennifer Egan women plans home And it may be that a crowd at a particular moment of history creates the object to justify its gathering, as it did at the first Human Be-In and Monterey Pop and Woodstock. Or it may be that two generations of war and surveillance had left people craving the embodiment of their own unease in the form of a lone, unsteady man on a slide guitar. Jennifer Egan men war two I haven't had writer's block. I think it's because my process involves writing very badly. Jennifer Egan block writing thinking The music industry is an interesting lens through which to look at change, because it has had such a difficult time adjusting to the digital age. Jennifer Egan adjusting age interesting th blu nyt th stRs u can't c th hum tht nevr gOs awy Jennifer Egan I loved every minute of my childhood - sunbathing on the fire escape, digging for buried treasure in the back yard, pulling alewives out of the sand... Then it was all taken away from me. I came back every summer to visit my father until I was 18, but I was always the outsider. Jennifer Egan taken summer father I listened to classic rock and roll, and punk rock. 'Goon Squad' provides a pretty accurate playlist of my teenage years, though it leaves out 'The Who,' which was my absolute favorite band. Jennifer Egan rocks teenage years I hope to keep writing journalism as long as I write fiction; it's afforded me such amazing adventures and opportunities. It does take a lot of time, so it's hard to do both at once, but I try to do a big journalism piece every couple of years, and I'll hopefully continue with that. Jennifer Egan couple writing adventure I find myself thinking more about the past as I get older... maybe because there's just more of it to think about. At the same time, I'm less haunted by it than I was as a younger person. I guess that's probably the ideal: to reach a point where you have access to all of your memories, but you don't feel victimized by them. Jennifer Egan memories past thinking [I]t may be that a crowd at a particular moment of history creates the object to justify its gathering. Jennifer Egan crowds gathering may When the clock stops on a life, all things emanating from it become precious, finite, and cordoned off for preservation. Each aspect of the dead person is removed from the flux of the everyday, which, of course, is where we miss him most. The quarantine around death makes it feel unlucky and wrong--a freakish incursion--and the dead, thus quarantined, come to seem more dead than they already are.... Borrowing from the dead is a way of keeping them engaged in life's daily transactions--in other words, alive. Jennifer Egan alive everyday missing happened as I listened: I felt pain. Not in my head, not in my arm, not in my leg; everywhere at once. I told myself there was no difference between being “inside” and being “outside,” that it all came down to X’s and O’s that could be acquired in any number of different ways, but the pain increased to a point where I thought I might collapse, and I limped away. Jennifer Egan differences pain numbers The world is full of shitheads, Rhea. Don’t listen to them—listen to me. And I know that Lou is one of those shitheads. But I listen. Jennifer Egan shitheads listen-to-me world I think, The world is actually huge. That's the part no one can really explain. Jennifer Egan huge world thinking I had this idea that I could hire myself out as a person to go on archeological digs and dig, without any training! I actually wrote to a number of archeology departments and offered up my services. Jennifer Egan training numbers ideas
