Jennifer Egan Quotes

It seemed impossible that a scrappy book like 'Goon Squad' could win an award like that. It's such an iconic honor. I think what the Pulitzer means to me is that I'll need to work very, very hard to try to live up to it.

I am, of course, greatly honoured to win the Booker, which is one of the great literary prizes in the world.

I hate to tell you this, but I did not know what the National Book Award was when I got the call.

Oh, I've become immune to the Booker. I think we need something a little more like the Pulitzer prize, where there isn't this great race.

Is the prestige conferred by the Man Booker prize for the book or me? I would prefer it on the book and for me to be treated ordinarily.

I can't say that winning the Pen/Faulkner was a dream come true because I would never have dared to dream it.

Authors should be honored only for their works.

I'm glad a genre writer has got a knighthood, but stunned that it was me.

You have the feeling that if you get a Pulitzer, you're somehow set for life.

If I were a writer, the Pulitzer Prize would be important to me. This is my profession, so an Oscar is important.

I just wrote the book and was amazed and astounded that it became a bestseller and won the Pulitzer Prize. It still hasn't sunk in.

By the time I was in fifth grade, I was dreaming of the Pulitzer Prize.

Mediocrity is now, as formerly, dangerous, commonly fatal, to the poet; but among even the successful writers of prose, those who rise sensibly above it are the very rarest exceptions.

The effect of prizes on one's career - if that is what to call it - is considerable, since they give one more clout with publishers and more notoriety among journalists. The effect on one's writing, however, is nil - otherwise, one would be in deep trouble.

For me it's a remarkable thing that there is a prize celebrating and honouring and making for a brief moment short fiction the centre of the literary universe.

Publication in 'The New Yorker' meant everything, and it's no exaggeration to say that it changed my life.

Making the best-seller list is a big deal; it's like being nominated for an Oscar. Hitting No. 1 is like actually winning the award. It's very gratifying.

I thought they would never select an Eastern writer for the Nobel. I was surprised.

In Australia, the Man Booker is sometimes seen as something of a chicken raffle.

I never set out to do this - getting to No. 1 in the 'New York Times' bestseller list wasn't even a pipedream.

'Ancillary Sword' picked up the Locus and the BSFA, which surprised the heck out of me.

Most people I know don't even realize I'm an award-winning author, but I have gotten many opportunities to travel to places I'd never have visited otherwise.

It's a strange failure of the literary world that Updike never quite received his due. Despite winning two Pulitzers and two National Book Awards and countless other awards and honours, he was denied the Nobel.

To map the Governor General's Award is to map both the past and the future of Canadian literature, and to be nominated for my first book is wonderful.

Growing up in Waterloo, the Governor General's Award wasn't something I even thought to wish for.