Jennifer Egan Quotes

We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment.

You who choose to lead must follow. But if you fall, you fall alone.

the time to hesitate is through no time to wallowin the mire Try now we can only lose and our love become a funeral pyre

Something inside me twists as I remember another voice. Rue. In the arena. When I gave her the leg of groosling. “Oh, I've never had a whole leg to myself before.” The disbelief of the chronically hungry.

You can never get the smell of smoke out. Like the smell of failure in life.

One of the reasons that I came forward and sort burned of my life to the ground, and I can't go back and see my family in the United States - I obviously lost my job, which I was quite comfortable with. I lost my home. It was because I felt there was no alternative.

People say they want to be in risky environments and do all kinds of exciting stuff. But they don't actually know what risk means: that risk actually does bring failure and mistakes.

If you make mistakes, it can cost you.

'The Invitation' is a meditation on grief and loss carried within a suspense drama. At its core, it's about a dinner party gone horribly wrong and about the consequences of denying our pain.

If you compromise, and then you succeed, that's another kind of feeling. But if you compromise and fail, it's two failures at least.

Sometimes a leap of faith doesn't pan out.

Injuries are part of life. We can't decide on that.

It's never easy to watch. It's never great to see your friend or teammate put himself through hell.

I can try to disable it," I said, "but if I mess up, this whole apartment is going to fill with gas. We'll die." Thalia swallowed. " I trust you. Just... don't mess it up.

Even now, as I write this, I can still feel that tightness. And I want you to feel it--the wind coming off the river, the waves, the silence, the wooded frontier. You're at the bow of a boat on the Rainy River. You're twenty-one years old, you're scared, and there's a hard squeezing pressure in your chest. What would you do? Would you jump? Would you feel pity for yourself? Would you think about your family and your childhood and your dreams and all you're leaving behind? Would it hurt? Would it feel like dying? Would you cry, as I did?

A moment comes in war when the last line must be crossed. The line that separates what you hold dear from what total war demands. If he couldn't cross that line, the battle was over, and he was lost. His heart, the war. Her face, the battlefield. With a cry only he could hear, the hunter turned. And ran.

Oh lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

Pain is a forcing sieve that turns me to gruel.

Once upon a time there was a girl who wanted to put her fist through a mirror. She would tell everyone it was so that she could see what was on the other side, but really, it was so that she wouldn't have to look at herself. That, and because she thought she might be able to steal a piece of glass when no one was looking, and use it to carve her heart out of her chest.

If it doesn't hurt, it wasn't a big deal.

Pain, loss and separation are inevitable on the path of love, and the only way of avoiding them is by deciding not to take that path at all. In order not to suffer, you have to renounce love.It was like putting out your own eyes in order not to see the bad things in life.

Sanity brings pain but madness is a vile thing.

Awareness is the enemy of sanity, for once you hear the screaming, it never stops.

Choke me in the shallow water before I get too deep.