Quotes from Jonathan Franzen

Once upon a time, it had sufficed to write 'The Sound and the Fury' or 'The Sun Also Rises.' But now bigness was essential. Thickness, length.

his new place would have to be clean and orderly, to signify self-mastery.

Connie posed no kind of threat to somebody as well rounded as Jessica. Connie had no notion of wholeness—was all depth and no breadth. When she was coloring, she got lost in saturating one or two areas with a felt-tip pen, leaving the rest blank and ignoring Patty's cheerful urgings to try some other colors.

A fact of my life was that I had a morbid fear of reproach, especially from women.

She wore an expression of love so naked it seemed to Pip almost obscene.

Dad, Dad, Dad. What's wrong?" Alfred looked up at his son and into his eyes. He opened his mouth, but the only word he could produce was "I—" I— I have made mistakes— I am alone— I am wet— I want to die— I am sorry— I did my best— I love my children— I need your help— I want to die— "I can't be here," he said.

It was as if the bones and veins were working their way to the surface; as if the skin were water receding to expose shapes at the bottom of a harbor.

the more he existed as the Internet's image of him, the less he felt like he existed as a flesh-and-blood person.

Not only had Mr. Butcavage's questions been reasonable, he also had an unfortunate name and no friends in his neighborhood. He was probably a lonely person like her mother, and Pip felt helplessly compassionate toward anyone who reminded her of her mother.

You seem a little challenged in the entitlement department. I mean, compared to the others.

Ma ora si rendeva conto che quello, come tradimento, era così piccolo che faceva ridere. Così piccolo che faceva piangere.

She noted with pleasure that he'd already dispensed with a salutation

I think there's eternity in every second we're alive.

How terribly easy it had turned out to be to transform naturally occurring uranium into hollow spheres of plutonium, pack the spheres with tritium and surround them with explosives and deuterium, and do it all in such miniature that the capacity to incinerate a million people could fit on the bed of Cody Flayner's pickup.

His life was much fuller than hers, and the breathing space this gave her was welcome.

AT LEAST THE WAR ON THE ENVIRONMENT IS GOING WELL.

Over the years, Leila had come to believe that politicians were literally made of special stuff, chemically different stuff. The senator was flabby and bad-haired and acne-scarred and yet completely magnetic.

How, by the logic of addiction, could we not have proceeded to the needle and the vein?

In terms of having an experience, seriously contemplating a murder was almost as good as going through with it, and it had the added benefit of not entailing risk. Between prison and no prison, no prison was clearly preferable.

The love that was a granite impediment at the center of her life was also an unshakable foundation;

He'd inspired Perry to devise a theory of how all religion worked: Along comes a leader who's uninhibited enough to use everyday words in a new and strong and counterintuitive way, which emboldens the people around him to use this rhetoric themselves, and the very act of using it creates sensations unlike anything they're used to in everyday life;

Never been a washcloth user, no.

and so, in the very act of attacking the full story, Pip was somehow confirming its essential plausibility.

The nakedness of the presents on the floor was a sad premonition of their naked future, after the brief, false glory of being wrapped.