Jennifer Egan Quotes

My advice would be to write what is most personal and specific to your experience or your life. And your voice will emerge and because of its specificity, it will be universal.

Everything I've written is personal - it's the only way I know how to write.

I write from my life, my experience. I'm selfish that way.

I think it's nearly impossible to write something fictional without having it be about yourself in some way or another.

All my songs come from me because I only seem able to write about myself and my experiences.

When I write for myself, I think about myself and draw from my own experience.

We've always written from personal experiences.

I write about what happens to me. It's all there. I couldn't do it any other way.

I read a quote to the effect that we are always writing about ourselves no matter what we're doing. That may be so.

I used to say it was painful to write lyrics about myself and looking inward.

My act is based on my life.

I'm not really an autobiographical writer, though I use lots of stuff from my life to make my stories seem real. But when I actually write about myself, I get very confused.

Everyone eventually winds up writing about themselves - the problem is finding the best way to go about it. To write about oneself literally, in the first person, presumes a more interesting personal life and philosophy than most rock lyricists possess. John Lennon was good for one great album based on musical direct address, 'Plastic Ono Band.'

I think no one but me has the right to write about my life as I want to write it in a particular way. I don't think any other person will be able to tell the story of my life like how I have approached it. It works best when it's written by someone who has experienced it herself.

Worthy or not, my life is my subject, and my subject is my life.

If you write something that's personal, there's going to be elements of yourself in it.

The truth is, for however much my stories come out of things that have happened to me, they're not darkly or as deeply personal as someone like Marc Maron or a lot of comedians, but they are essentially my life and my interpretation of it.

I think anything that anyone writes that's any good is going to have a lot of autobiography.

Everything I've written has been personal and touched on things that I needed to deal with in my personal life. So I just feel that writing is great therapy, and the best writing comes from truth, and so I mine my life constantly for that.

Really, as a writer, I believe that if you're going to write about your own life, you need to do it as honestly and candidly as you are capable.

I write to be truthful in my songs, which is why I wrote what's painfully truthful about my life in my autobiography.

For me, when I'm writing something really personal, I don't feel good about it. It's weird that people can connect to it and like something that came from a really crap place. You have to be quite brave to write about something that you honestly feel and think.

If I'm writing strictly for others, how does that show what I'm experiencing or thinking? I just got to a point where I realized I could be as personal as I wanted to be and people could relate to those situations if they so choose.

I can't play anything until I find something that connects to my life, something I can carry as my secret map or code for the character.

You wonder why I only talk about my personal life. But that's all I've ever done.