Quotes About Jonathan Franzen

it seemed as if the Internet was governed more by fear: the fear of unpopularity and uncoolness, the fear of missing out, the fear of being flamed or forgotten.

Wow, thank you so much for the compliment! Patty answered brightly, to end things. At the time, she believed that it was because she was so selflessly team-spirited that direct personal compliments made her so uncomfortable. The autobiographer now thinks that compliments were like a beverage she was unconsciously smart enough to deny herself even one drop of, because her thirst for them was infinite.

There was a kind of liberation in jettisoning all thought of being a good person.

When the sex is persuasively rendered, it tends to read autobiographically, and there are limits to my desire for immersion in a stranger's biochemistry.

Wasn't asking for a recipe supposed to be good coin of the feminine realm?

According to Scripture, earthly life was but a moment, but the moment seemed spacious when he was with her.

Local politicians of color said children and tomorrow. They said digital and democracy and history.

It was awkward to be called dear by a person you felt like calling insufferable bitch.

It was strange that self-pity wasn't on the list of deadly sins; none was deadlier.

seemed as if the Internet was governed more by fear: the fear of unpopularity and uncoolness, the fear of missing out, the fear of being flamed or forgotten.

Clem couldn't stand to be in the same room with him. He was giving up his student deferment to show his father what a strong man did.

cheap euphoria smeared across their faces like the juice of sex and peaches, who thought that this was what baseball was about

And the proof of his insanity? His belief that the U.S. government was a repressive conspiracy that muzzled radical opinion. Only an insane person would believe that! The Unabomber had really, really liked Leila.

What we get, instead, are characters keeping their heartless compulsions secret from those who love them; characters scheming to appear loving or to prove to themselves that what feels like love is really just disguised self-interest; or, at most, characters directing an abstract or spiritual love toward somebody profoundly repellent . . .

tells him to give away his money. He says what to do in the present—as if the present is where you find eternity—and I think that's right. Eternity is a mystery to us, just like God is a mystery. It doesn't have to mean rejoicing in heaven or burning in hell. It could be a timeless state of grace or bottomless despair. I think there's eternity in every second we're alive.

All of them giggled and swaggered in that happy ascendancy, repellent in any land, of teens on their turf.

Worse than spanking or even liver was the sound of someone else's Ping-Pong.

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

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.

He reminded me of a beaver, all uncorrected overbite and senseless industry.

She was one of New Prospect's original hippies, a walking yes to the question Are You Experienced?

I enjoyed Jonathan Franzen's 'Freedom.' Would I make that into a film? I think it's better suited to television. That would very much be a dialogue and performance piece, and it would take some very skilful direction - but not my kind of directing. But I thought it was a real literary work.

Depression presents itself as a realism regarding the rottenness of the world in general and the rottenness of your life in particular.