Quotes of Jeffrey Eugenides - somelinesforyou

“ There are some books that reached through the noise of life to grab you by the collar and speak only of the truest things. ”

- Jeffrey Eugenides

“ A love story can never be about full possession. The happy marriage, the requited love, the desire that never dimsthese are lucky eventualites but they aren't love stories. Love stories depend on disappointment, on unequal births and feuding families, on matrimonial boredom and at least one cold heart. Love stories, nearly without exception, give love a bad name. We value love not because it's stronger than death but because it's weaker. Say what you want about love: death will finish it. You will not go on loving in the grave, not in any physical way that will at all resemble love as we know it on earth. The perishable nature of love is what gives love its importance in our lives. If it were endless, if it were on tap, love wouldn't hit us the way it does. And we certainly wouldn't write about it. ”

- Jeffrey Eugenides

“ There was nowhere I could go that wouldn't be you. ”

- Jeffrey Eugenides

“ Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind. ”

- Jeffrey Eugenides

“ In the end, it wasn't death that surprised her but the stubbornness of life. ”

- Jeffrey Eugenides

“ Yes, you need a passport to prove to the world that you exist. The people at passport control, they cannot look at you and see you are a person. No! They have to look at a little photograph of you. Then they believe you exist. ”

- Jeffrey Eugenides

“ It was amazing how it worked: the tiniest bit of truth made credible the greatest lies. ”

- Jeffrey Eugenides

“ There was nowhere I could go that wouldn't be you. ”

- Jeffrey Eugenides

“ O Earth, lie heavily upon her eyes; Seal her sweet eyes weary of watching Earth; Lie close around her; leave no room for mirth With its harsh laughter, nor for sound of sighs. She hath no questions, she hath no replies. ”

- Jeffrey Eugenides

“ In the end, it wasn't death that surprised her but the stubbornness of life. ”

- Jeffrey Eugenides

“ O Earth, lie heavily upon her eyes; Seal her sweet eyes weary of watching Earth; Lie close around her; leave no room for mirth With its harsh laughter, nor for sound of sighs. She hath no questions, she hath no replies. ”

- Jeffrey Eugenides

“ She thought a writer should work harder writing a book than she did reading it. ”

- Jeffrey Eugenides

“ The last thing the hockey ball symbolized was Time itself, the unstoppability of it, the way we're chained to our bodies, which are chained to Time. ”

- Jeffrey Eugenides

“ But maybe they understood more about life than I did. From an early age they knew what little value the world placed in books, and so didn't waste their time with them. Whereas I, even now, persist in believing that these black marks on white paper bear the greatest significance, that if I keep writing, I might be able to catch the rainbow of consciousness in a jar. ”

- Jeffrey Eugenides

“ But maybe they understood more about life than I did. From an early age they knew what little value the world placed in books, and so didn't waste their time with them. Whereas I, even now, persist in believing that these black marks on white paper bear the greatest significance, that if I keep writing, I might be able to catch the rainbow of consciousness in a jar. ”

- Jeffrey Eugenides

“ Reading a novel after reading semiotic theory was like jogging emptyhanded after jogging with hand weights. What exquisite guilt she felt, wickedly enjoying narrative! Madeleine felt safe with a nineteenth century novel. There were going to be people in it. Something was going to happen to them in a place resembling the world. Then too there were lots of weddings in Wharton and Austen. There were all kinds of irresistible gloomy men. ”

- Jeffrey Eugenides
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