Jennifer Egan Quotes

I grew up in the 70s, when people talked on the phone - and just talked more. I remember the phone was the epicenter of our house. I spent hours every evening as a teenager waiting for the phone to ring and talking to my friends. Before the age of technology, it was also easier to just disappear from the face of the earth.

You had to pick up a landline to make sure your best friend wore a matching outfit to school. I do remember people talking more. Nostalgia is dangerous, though.

You used to be able to just call people. You didn't have to be on someone's calendar to have a phone conversation. The telephone was an important and valuable domain of communication, both for casual, friendly chats and for professional exchanges of ideas and information. But no more.

Thinking of that movie 'The Artist'; if anyone ever needed to reach anyone, I'm just thinking they didn't have cell phones, they didn't have Internet, they didn't have email, so I always wonder how it was back then where you had to be home if you needed to get a phone call; otherwise, people couldn't get a hold of you.

What self-respecting teenage kid growing up in the U.S. hasn't played Truth or Dare? Before cell phones, we kids spent a lot of time in the same place and actually had to come up with our own entertainment. Truth or Dare was the game of choice to break the ice between the boys and the girls.

Remember that as a teenager you are in the last stage of your life when you will be happy to hear the phone is for you.

The thing that makes my generation The Greatest is our ability to hang out. We're spectacular at it. If you take somebody from my generation and sit them on a couch and bring them food and plumbing, they'll sit there and talk to you about anything you want until the day you die.

When I was a teenager in Milwaukee in the 1980s, life was pretty boring, and I found myself riveted by the sheer melodrama of everyday life of the 1960s.

We've come a long way from having one land line that was forbidden to be answered during dinner. We had no answering machine, just a dad who barked, 'Who calls during dinner? If it's important, they'll call back.' He was right.

Bridging the virtual world with the physical word is really when social media channels come to life and the magic happens. Because whoever coined the term 'social media' didn't do us any favors. It's not really media. It's more like the telephone, less like the TV.

The telephone is a good way to talk to people without having to offer them a drink.

Talk is by far the most accessible of pleasures. It costs nothing in money, it is all profit, it completes our education, founds and fosters our friendships, and can be enjoyed at any age and in almost any state of health.

I didn't have an incredibly active social life as a teenager. I always wished it was a little bit more exciting than it was.

I visualized high school as being like 'Saved By the Bell.' I decided I would do all the things they did on that show.

What we've tried to do is have neighbors, colleagues, friends and family talking.

My joints hurt. I'm slower. But I remember what it was like to run and play with the boys. I want to be one of the boys.

What did people do prior to cell phones? Read a book? If I'm stuck in a car, and I don't have my phone, I'm like, 'What am I doing?' Car rides used to be one of my favorite things.

The telephone, which interrupts the most serious conversations and cuts short the most weighty observations, has a romance of its own.

Mistresses are like books; if you pore upon them too much, they doze you and make you unfit for company; but if used discreetly, you are the fitter for conversation by em.

He loves people, but even more than that he loves to talk to people.

What I miss the most is chatting with my friends and family and having a good laugh over a simple meal.

My first phone was two tin cans tied together with string, and it worked pretty good.

Mourning the loss of the phone call is like pining for buggy driving or women in hats or three-martini lunches. They've gone.

I have always liked hanging out with people and talking to people.

My brothers and I grew up in a time where talking, storytelling, telling jokes was sometimes all you had. It wasn't like today, with so many options and portability.