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Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes

Novelist

Jeffrey Eugenides is an American novelist known for his unique narrative style and profound portrayal of complex family relationships. His works often explore identity, genetics, and human emotions.

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All Virgin Suicides Ifs Writing Girl People Way World Knows Thinking Persons Made Suicide Book Feels Character Ends Felt House Love Said

Famous Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes

“What I do when I create a character is put in details from all the people I know who might be like that person, and then put in a huge amount of myself.”

People Knows Persons Character Might Creativity Huge Amount Details

Author:Jeffrey Eugenides

“I think there's a real connection between acting and writing novels because the way I write characters has a little bit to do with the method acting that I was taught in high school and college.”

Thinking Way Writing Littles Real Character School Bits Acting Novel Taught College Little Bit High School Connections Method Method Acting Real Connection

Author:Jeffrey Eugenides

“If I write a character, instead of looking from the outside, like maybe a journalist would, trying to describe them physically and figuring out what kind of things they might be interested in or have in their house, I don't really do it that way. I try to feel what it would be like to be inside this person, to be them.”

Ifs Way Feels Writing Trying Kind Persons Character Might Would Be House Journalist

Author:Jeffrey Eugenides

“There's a kind of acting that goes on in my head when I'm writing a character where I put myself in their place.”

Writing Kind Character Acting Goes On

Author:Jeffrey Eugenides

“When I'm creating a character, it's a little bit like what my theater teachers used to tell me about Stanislavsky, like if you're using sense memory to do a scene - if you have to cry in a scene, you try to remember something in your life that made you cry and you use that in order to get the tears.”

Ifs Trying Littles Made Character Use Remember Used Order Bits Memories Teacher Cry Tears Scene Creating Little Bit Theater Remember Something

Author:Jeffrey Eugenides

“Depending on the year or the therapist he was seeing, he'd learned to ascribe just about every facet of his character as a psychological reaction to his parents' fighting: his laziness, his overachieving, his tendency to isolate, his tendency to seduce, his hypochondria, his sense of invulnerability, his self-loathing, his narcissism.”

Years Self Character Fighting Parent Seeing Reactions Tendencies Psychological Laziness Narcissism Therapists Loathing Facets Seducing Self Loathing Invulnerability Overachieving

Book:The Marriage Plot: A Novel

Source: The Marriage Plot: A Novel

“If you think of even Tolstoy or a book like 'Anna Karenina,' you go from character to character, and each section is from the third person perspective of a different character, so you get to see the whole world a little more kaleidoscopically that way. That's traditional narrative manner, and I haven't done a book like that before, but I enjoyed it.”

“Basically you come up with the fictional idea and you start writing that story, but then in order to write it and to make it seem real, you sometimes put your own memories in. Even if it's a character that's very different from you.”

Ifs Writing Ideas Different Real Sometimes Character Stories Seems Order Memories Come Up Real You

Author:Jeffrey Eugenides

“That's the way I will write characters, put a fair amount of myself in them, and then everyone else who was like that person, I will pick and choose.”

Way Writing Persons Character Amount Picks Fairs

Author:Jeffrey Eugenides

“I'm hopefully making the reader feel a lot about the characters and then about their own life.”

Feels Character Emotion Reader Hopefully

Author:Jeffrey Eugenides

“I approach writing female characters the same why I approach writing male characters. I never think I'm writing about women, I think I'm writing about one woman, one person. And I try to imagine what she is like, and endow her with a lot of my own thoughts and history.”

Thinking Writing Trying Persons Character My Own Imagine Approach Female Males Gender One Woman Female Characters

Author:Jeffrey Eugenides

About the Author

Born: March 8, 1960
Known for: Novelist
Quotes: 282

Books & Sources

MiddlesexRelated source material

The Virgin Suicides: A NovelRelated source material

The Marriage Plot: A NovelRelated source material

The Virgin SuicidesRelated source material

Middlesex: A NovelRelated source material

The Marriage PlotRelated source material

Fresh ComplaintRelated source material

My Mistress's Sparrow Is Dead: Great Love Stories from Chekhov to MunroRelated source material

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