Home / Authors / Jeffrey Eugenides

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.

Filter quotes by topic

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

“I have a very beautiful room in my house... It's glass on three sides, and you'd think that's the perfect place to write. Somehow in that nice room I feel too exposed, and... I'm too distracted by things going on, so I end up writing in a not-very-nice office bedroom.”

Thinking Feels Writing Ends Beautiful Three House Sides Perfect Rooms Nice Office Glasses Exposed Bedroom Distracted Very Nice Very Beautiful Three Sides

Author:Jeffrey Eugenides

“I think the suicides in my first book came from the idea of growing up in Detroit. If you grow up in a city like that you feel everything is perishing, evanescent and going away very quickly.”

Ifs Thinking Feels Firsts Book Ideas Grows Cities Growing Up Growing Suicide Going Away Detroit Perishing

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

“It was one of those humid days when the atmosphere gets confused. Sitting on the porch, you could feel it: the air wishing it was water.”

Feels Wish Water Air Sitting Atmosphere Confused Day Porch Humidity

Book:Middlesex

Source: Middlesex

“Where else would she feel more comfortable than in this subterranean realm where people wrote down what they couldn't say, where they gave voice to their most shameful longings and knowledge?”

People Feels Voice Comfortable Longing Realms Shameful

Book:Middlesex

Source: Middlesex

“There comes a moment, when you get lost in the woods, when the woods begin to feel like home.”

Feels Moments Home Lost Woods Lost In The Woods

Author:Jeffrey Eugenides

“It was possible to feel superior to other people and feel like a misfit at the same time.”

People Feels Superiors Misfits

Book:The Marriage Plot: A Novel

Source: The Marriage Plot: A Novel

“Though at this moment she felt abused, abandoned, and ashamed of herself, Madeleine knew that she was still young, that she had her whole life ahead of her--a life in which, if she persevered, she might do something special--and that part of persevering meant getting past moments just like this one, when people made you feel small, unlovable, and took away your confidence.”

People Ifs Feels Made Stills Whole Moments Might Past Young Felt Special Whole Life Ashamed Abandoned Something Special Unlovable Madeleines

Book:The Marriage Plot: A Novel

Source: The Marriage Plot: A Novel

“One of the reasons that art is important to me is sometimes it actually feels more coherent than life. It orders the chaos.”

Feels Art Important Sometimes Reason Order Art Is Chaos

Author:Jeffrey Eugenides

“He knew a lot about his grandparents - and perhaps he feels he's been endowed with abilities to go into people's heads who are long dead - but, to a certain extent, he's making it up.”

People Feels Long Certain Ability Grandparent

Author:Jeffrey Eugenides

“Jacques Derrida is a very important thinker and philosopher who has made serious contributions to both philosophy and literary criticism. Roland Barthes is the one I feel most affinity for, and Michel Foucault, well, his writing influenced my novel, 'Middlesex.'”

Feels Writing Wells Made Important Philosophy Novel Serious Criticism Philosopher Contribution Thinker Affinity Literary Criticism Derrida

Author:Jeffrey Eugenides

“I want an ending that’s satisfying. I’m more of a classical writer than a modernist one in that I want the ending to be coherent and feel like an ending. I don’t like when it just seems to putter out. I mean, life is chaotic enough.”

Want Feels Mean Enough Seems Life Is Satisfying Chaotic Meaning Life

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

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

Similar Authors

Paul AusterBrowse related quotes
David LevithanBrowse related quotes
Stephen KingBrowse related quotes
Sarah DessenBrowse related quotes
George SaundersBrowse related quotes
Neil GaimanBrowse related quotes
Taylor SwiftBrowse related quotes
Margaret AtwoodBrowse related quotes
Sandra CisnerosBrowse related quotes
David SedarisBrowse related quotes