When I wrote The Virgin Suicides, I gave myself very strict rules about the narrative voice: the boys would only be able to report what they had seen or found or what had been told to them. Jeffrey Eugenides More Quotes by Jeffrey Eugenides More Quotes From Jeffrey Eugenides I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974. Jeffrey Eugenides teenage girl baby We value love not because it's stronger than death but because it's weaker. Say what you want about love: death will finish it. You will not go on loving in the grave, not in any physical way that will at all resemble love as we know it on earth. The perishable nature of love is what gives love its importance in our lives. If it were endless, if it were on tap, love wouldn't hit us the way it does. Jeffrey Eugenides stronger love giving What lingered after them was not life, which always overcomes natural death, but the most trivial list of mundane facts: a clock ticking on a wall, a room dim at noon, and the outrageousness of a human being thinking only of herself. Jeffrey Eugenides wall overcoming thinking All wisdom ends in paradox. Jeffrey Eugenides paradox ends And in some of the houses, people were getting old and sick and were dying, leaving others to grieve. It was happening all the time, unnoticed, and it was the thing that really mattered. What really mattered in life, what gave it weight, was death. Jeffrey Eugenides sick grieving people She held herself very straight, like Audrey Hepburn, whom all women idolize and men never think about. Jeffrey Eugenides virgin-suicides men thinking I'm hopefully making the reader feel a lot about the characters and then about their own life. Jeffrey Eugenides emotion reader character Depending on the year or the therapist he was seeing, he'd learned to ascribe just about every facet of his character as a psychological reaction to his parents' fighting: his laziness, his overachieving, his tendency to isolate, his tendency to seduce, his hypochondria, his sense of invulnerability, his self-loathing, his narcissism. Jeffrey Eugenides fighting self character She had given birth to me and nursed me and brought me up. She had known me before I knew myself and now she had no say in the matter. Life started out one thing and then suddenly turned a corner and became something else. Jeffrey Eugenides birth given matter She understood that her heart operated on its own instructions, that she had no control over it or, indeed, anything else. Jeffrey Eugenides over-it instruction heart I was thinking how amazing it was that the world contained so many lives. Out in these streets people were embroiled in a thousand different matters, money problems, love problems, school problems. People were falling in love, getting married, going to drug rehab, learning how to ice-skate, getting bifocals, studying for exams, trying on clothes, getting their hair-cut and getting born. And in some houses people were getting old and sick and were dying, leaving others to grieve. It was happening all the time, unnoticed, and it was the thing that really mattered. Jeffrey Eugenides falling-in-love cutting school Basically what we have here is a dreamer. Somebody out of touch with reality. When she jumped, she probably thought she'd fly Jeffrey Eugenides dreamer life reality To be inclusive you must accommodate different levels of sophistication. Jeffrey Eugenides sophistication levels different I don’t know what you’re feeling, I won’t even pretend Jeffrey Eugenides virgin-suicides wonderful-life feelings 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 stories kids people Can you see me? All of me? Probably not. No one ever really has. Jeffrey Eugenides In the end, it wasn't death that surprised her but the stubbornness of life. Jeffrey Eugenides stubbornness ends death But, like anyone in love, Madeleine believed that her own relationship was different from every other relationship, immune from typical problems. Jeffrey Eugenides typical different problem I tell my students that when you write, you should pretend you’re writing the best letter you ever wrote to the smartest friend you have. That way, you’ll never dumb things down. You won’t have to explain things that don’t need explaining. You’ll assume an intimacy and a natural shorthand, which is good because readers are smart and don’t wish to be condescended to. Jeffrey Eugenides smart dumb writing It was possible to feel superior to other people and feel like a misfit at the same time. Jeffrey Eugenides misfits feels people
