Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes

I thought about dying whenever I got bad news about other people.

It is not death or pain that is to be dreaded, but the fear of pain or death.

I had to force myself not to be overly protective because I had lost one child.

One moment I can be happy and laughing, but then it comes over me. It's my mom.

The scariest thing in the world is thinking someone you love is going to die.

After my husband died, I could not write much - I could not concentrate. I was too exhausted most of the time even to contemplate writing. But I did take notes - not for fiction, but for a journal, or diary, of this terrible time. I did not think that I would ever survive this interlude.

When you lose your mother at 20 and then your father soon after, melancholia is part of your life.

I think that people always say when people pass away that time heals all wounds. And that's probably the biggest lie. It's not true. I think we all need to remember that it is always still tough, and it's like losing a piece of your heart.

I was terribly wounded by my wife's death.

That's the thing about suicide. Try as you might to remember how a person lived his life, you always end up thinking about how he ended it.

I have always been terrified of the death of my parents. I never knew if I could count on myself. I never knew if that would send me over the edge.

There's something about losing friends, particularly young people, where it's not something that you get over. I don't believe there's a healing process.

I never had time to think about my beliefs until my 28-year-old daughter Paula fell ill. She was in a coma for a year, and I took care of her at home until she died in my arms in December of 1992.

I just didn't want to admit that he was dead.

I want to tell you what it was really like to think death is imminent, but I can't. It's a taste in your mouth. And an emptiness.

It was very hard for all of us. It's still very hard. The anniversary of his death just passed, and every single one of his friends, still, after all these years... it's unbelievable.

And from my place, and from the time that I went through my divorce, I also had my father pass away in the middle of all that. And it kind of made everything else just kind of like the back burner, you know.

I saw Suicide in '74 and it was pretty horrifying.

I had a friend, Melissa, who was 28 years old. She was my best friend's wife, and she was my wife's best friend. She died of breast cancer. When she passed away back in 2004 was the last time I cried.

Depression is a feeling without a cause. Mourning has a cause.

The fact that I lost my son permeates my being.

Having lost people when they were young, you feel intimately acquainted with mortality, I guess. Though I procrastinate worse than anybody.

What's more awful, to me, than blood and guts is the thought of losing those who you love.

My father's death, my move, and my frightening and difficult delivery created a tremendous amount of stress, pain, and sadness for me. I was practically devastated beyond recovery.

I have sometimes imagined my own death and brought myself to tears.