Jennifer Egan Quotes

Anita Shreve is an author I adore. I rip through her meaty books and get off on the robust romance immensely - especially if I am feeling less than robust in my real life.

I have a shelf of comfort books, which I read when the world closes in on me or something untoward happens.

It's the rare book that's able to transport you in a way that a movie does.

One of the joys of a really good book is that you're so into the world of the book, you forget what you're looking at is words on a page.

When I was a kid, I liked books that just seemed so dense you could lose yourself in them for a whole afternoon. They were like their own whole world.

To be transported into another world is my very favourite part of reading.

Romance novels are birthday cake and life is often peanut butter and jelly. I think everyone should have lots of delicious romance novels lying around for those times when the peanut butter of life gets stuck to the roof of your mouth.

I feel there's enough seriousness in the world without seeing it in the theatre.

Occasionally, I just need to escape from my work or be reminded of the comparative bliss of my own life, so I pick up a novel.

Even a song on the radio that completely lacks substance is there for a reason. Sometimes, people need a break from cold reality; the song that you really don't have to put that much thought power into can be just as entertaining as something that might take you on a three- or four-minute cruise through the depth of reality.

I think we all like to get away from our troubles and worries with a good book.

The addictive pleasure of abandoning yourself to a book, of losing consciousness of your worries, your body, and your surroundings, to become a ghost haunting other worlds has influenced me in many ways.

For me, a good YA novel is the best kind of comfort food.

A well-composed book is a magic carpet on which we are wafted to a world that we cannot enter in any other way.

Rock n' Roll came from the slaves singing gospel in the fields. Their lives were hell and they used music to lift out of it, to take them away. That's what rock n' roll should do - take you to a better place.

When you read a book, you are letting another person distract your thoughts and work your emotions. If they are adept, there's nothing better than turning off and getting lost.

Growing up, books were my lifeline, and I owe a debt to those writers that can never be repaid. They saved my sanity and gave me a world I could escape to. If I can pay that forward to another person, that's all I ask.

People don't want to pay 8 or 9 dollars to go see a problem that they have in their life, on screen. They pay to get away from that. That's why they watch soap operas.

I just love the idea that people disappear into the story for a while. You grab a book, and you want to get back to it, and your life becomes a bit of an interruption. I would love readers to feel like that.

I have never known any distress that an hour's reading did not relieve.

I know that part of the reason I read Tolkien when I'm ill is that there is an almost total absence of sexuality in his world, which is restful.

The key thing about a book is that you lose yourself in the author's world.

If you are heartbroken and can't face the world, you need something with a fantastic plot. You won't be able to read anything boring because your attention span when you are heartbroken decreases by three-quarters.

To be honest, acting was something where I got a chance to be somebody else and forget about the situation I was in.

I need the lightness of children's lit.