Jennifer Egan Quotes

Most directors that I've worked with - I've worked with before, especially in Holland - and they know that I'm somebody who talks and asks, and talks, and talks, and talks and questions and turns things around. I'm like a little cat, walking around my little nest until I find my place.

I think some people think that writers read and read and read, get the information, and then write. That's not how it works. Often, you write yourself into a dark place where you don't know what you need to know, so you go get the information.

I'm inspired by questions I have that I try to figure out the answers to through my writing.

It's my approach as a filmmaker always to go in, not with a thesis or preconceived notion, but with curiosity and questions and inquiry. So in some way, I'm always surprised. I'm always finding paths of engagement.

You write about what you know, and you write about what you want to know.

I feel that when I began writing, I had a need to know more about the play before I got into it. I think that's the way I was thinking. But my actual experience is that the best way to find out what the structure is, is by writing the play out laterally. You just have got to be brave enough to start without knowing where you are going.

Curiosity is the best motive for writing: curiosity about the world at large, or about oneself.

Whenever I do a book, I'm usually guided by a question or something that I'm trying to tease out.

In time I began to understand that it's when you start writing that you really find out what you don't know and need to know.

I always write about what interests me.

I don't agree with the sentiment 'write what you know.'... I think one should write what one doesn't know. The world is bigger and wider and more complex than our small subjective selves. One should prod, goad the imagination.

I write books to find out about things.

I don't have my novel outlined, and I have to write to discover what I am doing. Like the old lady, I don't know so well what I think until I see what I say; then I have to say it over again.

I never stop reading. I read everything, and I read every day. If you never read anything, be curious. Curiosity is the true foundation of education, reading things that we've factually already agreed on, and I love reading books. With that said, it's more important that you ask the question 'why.'

To some extent, I'm mildly surprised by every new piece, by the precise path that my interest takes.

A lot of our creative flow comes from a place of curiosity and exploration. It often feels like we're excavating and asking questions and not just giving answers but really just exploring.

I'm not the kind of writer that goes, 'I'm gonna write a song about sunshine,' or, 'I've just heard a phrase, so I'm gonna write that,' and then I write a song. I'll wait for inspiration to hit, and you can't depend on it.

All of my work is sort of fed by a question, a need to understand the world and why the world is what it is.

Since early childhood, I've been trying to learn all I can. Science is everything; it's not just physics. It's the way of understanding your environment, the world around you.

I have an open mind to learning new experiences.

I'm interested in everything. If I had enough time on this earth, I'd like to learn every art practice.

Good writing is often about trying to investigate something you feel is missing and trying to put it back.

I spent a lot of time on recce. It is a kind of creative chaos, but I like the sense of creative serendipity.

I started school because I felt like, as a songwriter, I was operating solely on instinct, and I was having a hard time deciding exactly what words I wanted to use. I felt like I wanted to be a writer, and being a curious person, school felt like a way to solve the problems I was having with my own work.

It's impossible to feel the creative juices flowing if you're always worried about the end result. I think really, really good work comes out of people being quite open, not stressed, really exploring, trying to be imaginative, without worrying too much about the end result.