Jennifer Egan Quotes

I think, really, that the only way a person can open their heart to someone who is so much another is really by knowing them... whether that's in a classroom, or a soccer team, or a food pantry, or any of those things. I mean, we're kind of more alike than we are different.

Art is a unifying language for all of us from across the world, and it transcends boundaries.

But I think 'Love, Actually' has a very realistic view of human nature in line with the latest scientific evidence. The opening scene, where Hugh Grant's character talks about the arrivals gate at Heathrow, is about friendship and connection, it's about who we really are as a species.

Some people think that writers are innately solitary and that there's a kind of romance to that solitariness. I tend to think that what writers really want to do is get accepted into things. They want to get accepted into society, into culture, into intelligentsia, into the fun. Writing is their mechanism, their instrument, for doing that.

For me, storytelling is all about how we learn about each other. I'm so curious about people, what makes them tick, why they are who they are, and how we all relate to each other, despite the fact that we may not think that we do.

If there's a feeling you have, other people have it. If there's something weird about your life, other people have lived it. If there's something kooky about your body, other people have that, too. We're not alone. There's some kind of tremendous relief in that and I think it can only be expressed in belly laughter. This tremendous relief that happens the millisecond we realize, it's not just me. That's what good laughter is about. It's about knowing that you're not alone.

You can get connections in lots of ways. You can get it by a friendship. You can get it by a dog. You can get it by a child. You can get it by being attached to a cause. You can get it by having huge problems and sharing those problems with other people.

I think that's what we all want on this earth - to feel that at some level we have connected with other human beings.

I think of language as our first music.

I think everybody wants to connect. There is nothing worse than feeling disconnected. And stories that really move people and make people care are the ones where they feel some sort of connection.

What's so exciting and terrifying about the writing process is that it really is an act of exploration and discovery. With all of us, not just writers, there is a sort of knowledge of the other. We have a lot more in common than we realize, and I think writing is really a sustained act of empathy.

I think our music is more about seeing ourselves in each other and trying to find a more humanistic viewpoint for the world.

there is always something comforting about knowing that you are not alone. That other people feel the way you do. That you are a bit screwed up, but still normal.

We are awakening from the dream of isolation, from the dream of loneliness, and it's a terrible shock.

I don't think it is possible to give tips for finding one's voice; it's one of those things for which there aren't really any tricks or shortcuts, or even any advice that necessarily translates from writer to writer. All I can tell you is to write as much as possible.

I don't think there's really any difference between art - or writing, or music - and magic. And I particularly draw the link between magic and writing. I think that they are profoundly connected.

It is surprising how many great men and women a small house will contain. I have had twenty-five or thirty souls, with their bodies, at once under my roof, and yet we often parted without being aware that we had come very near to one another.

The writer has to be brave, I think.

I think people enjoy "The Lobster" because people respond to original things, but I think they only respond to original things if they connect to some truths within us.

I think everything has its place. So if the ideas or the fluidity isn't coming in writing, maybe it's related to ingestions.

I think hip-hop is actually one of the most challenging things that's happened in music in a long time.

The more I live, the more I think, two people together is a miracle.

I think my work comes out of both an intense desire for connection and what it means to feel isolated. There's always going to be a kind of tidal movement back and forth between the two.

All art has this characteristic-it unites people.

Each way means loneliness -- and communion.