Quotes from Jennifer Egan

In a way, I'm always trying to do something I'm not qualified to do. So I feel that lack of qualification. And I'm scared. And I have a tendency to think things may not/probably won't work out. That's my basic mindset.

It's the feeling of being lifted out of my life into another world that is the thrill of writing fiction.

I love the thriller genre generally. I like murder mysteries and those kinds of adventure stories.

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.

What I Suddenly Understand My job is to make people uncomfortable. + I will do it all my life. ---> My mother, Sasha Blake, is my first victim.

I am at my worst trying to write about things that overlap with my life.

With 'The Keep,' I began with a theory about pitting the isolated disconnection of the gothic realm against present-day hyperconnectedness. I emerged feeling that the gothic genre is all about hyperconnectedness - the possibility of disembodied communication - and that we now live in a kind of permanently gothic state.

I think there are ways in which we censor ourselves; that's the most dangerous kind of censorship - that's how hegemony works.

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.

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

The book that is the closest genetically to 'Goon Squad' is 'Look at Me.' It has the futuristic element - although, freakishly, almost every aspect I invented has come to pass in some way, including the terrorist who fantasies about blowing up the World Trade Centre. That was extremely uncomfortable. The book came out on the week of 9/11.

I love the infinite variety of New York, how it's the epicenter of so many worlds.

I felt more doubtful than usual with 'Goon Squad,' because I knew that the book's genre wasn't easily named - Novel? Stories? Novel-in-stories? - and I worried that its lack of a clear category would count against it. My hopes for it were pretty modest.

I have a tendency to coddle my sons because I want to keep them safe, but I also want them to be strong and independent and curious and bold, and I worry that my coddling is going to have exactly the opposite effect.

I have a hatred of familiarity. If I feel like I am doing something I've done before, it feels old and done. I feel I have no choice but to strike out in directions that feel new - anything less just doesn't seem worth it.

'Goon Squad' took about three years to write and that's the short end. My second novel, 'Look at Me,' took six years.

Between books, I have to throw out everything I did before, because the tools I've used to write the previous book will not only not work for the next project, they will ruin it.

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.

Everybody sounds stoned, because they're e-mailing people the whole time they're talking to you.

Remaining a pop phenomenon for 20 years without dying or lapsing into self-parody is quite a feat.

Fiction is my deepest love, but I love journalism, too. It keeps me thinking vigorously, and it reminds me that there is a world out there.

I try consciously to keep myself entertained and challenged to not repeat myself at all. Like, when I start a new book, my goal is to pretty much throw out what I've done and try something completely different that I think initially I cannot do.

You can start imagining all kinds of things characters would feel, but you have to have a sense of whether those imaginings might be right.

I think the big lesson I've learned is that it's very hard to write satire in America because almost immediately, whatever you've thought of turns out to come true, or sometimes it already was true.