“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.” PeopleKnowsPersonsCharacterMightCreativityHugeAmountDetails 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.” IfsWayFeelsWritingTryingKindPersonsCharacterMightWould BeHouseJournalist Author:Jeffrey Eugenides
“I hadn't gotten old enough yet to realize that living sends a person not into the future but back into the past, to childhood and before birth, finally, to commune with the dead. You get older, you puff on the stairs, you enter the body of your father. From there it's only a quick jump to your grandparents, and then before you know it you're time traveling. In this life we grow backwards.” KnowsPersonsEnoughBodyPastFatherGrowsRealizingChildhoodBirthThis LifeTime TravelBackwardsGrandparentStairsPuffCommunes Book:Middlesex Source: Middlesex
“There have been hermaphrodites around forever, Cal. Forever. Plato said that the original human being was a hermaphrodite. Did you know that? The original person was two halves, one male, one female. Then these got separated. That's why everybody's always searching for their other half. Except for us. We've got both halves already.” KnowsHumansPersonsHas BeensSaidTwoHuman BeingsHalfForeverFemaleOriginalsMalesPlatoOther HalfDid You KnowHermaphrodites Book:Middlesex: A Novel Source: Middlesex: A Novel
“You used to be able to tell a person's nationality by the face. Immigration ended that. Next you discerned nationality via the footwear. Globalization ended that.” PersonsAbleFacesUsedNextImmigrationUsed To BeGlobalizationNationalityFootwear Book:Middlesex Source: Middlesex
“Remember that day you said you loved me? Remember that? See, you could do that because you're basically a sane person, who grew up in a loving, sane family. You could take a risk like that. But in my family we didn't go around saying we loved each other. We went around screaming at each other. So what do I do, when you say you love me? I go and undermine it.” PersonsSaidRememberRiskGrewGrew UpMy FamilySane Author:Jeffrey Eugenides
“Mitchell had answered that, as far as he understood them, mystical experiences were significant only to the extent that they changed a person's conception of reality, and if that changed conception led to a change in behavior and action, a loss of ego.” IfsPersonsRealityActionLossChangedEgoBehaviorUnderstoodSignificantConceptionMysticalMystical Experiences Book:The Marriage Plot: A Novel Source: The Marriage Plot: A Novel
“It was as if, before she`d met him, her blood had circulated grayly around her body, and now ir was all oxygenated and red. She was petrified of becoming the half-alive person she`d been before.” IfsPersonsBodyHalfAliveBloodBecomingMetsRedIrs Author:Jeffrey Eugenides
“The lover`s discourse was of an extreme solitude. The solitude was extreme because it wasn`t physical. It was extreme because you felt it while in the company of the person you loved. It was extreme because it was in your head, the most solitary of places.” PersonsFeltCompanyLoversSolitudeExtremesSolitaryDiscourse Book:The Marriage Plot: A Novel Source: The Marriage Plot: A Novel
“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.” PeopleWorldNeedsBelieveLooksLittlesPersonsProvePhotographPassports Author:Jeffrey Eugenides
“For the eternity that Lux Lisbon looked at him, Trip Fontaine looked back, and the love he felt at that moment, truer than all subsequent loves because it never had to survive real life, still plagued him, even now in the desert, with his looks and health wasted. 'You never know what'll set the memory off,' he told us. 'A baby's face. A bell on a cat's collar. Anything.' They didn't exchange a single word. But in the weeks that followed, Trip spent his days wandering the halls, hoping for Lux to appear, the most naked person with clothes on he had ever seen.” KnowsLooksPersonsStillsRealMomentsFacesFeltMemoriesWeekBabyClothesCatEternityReal LifeNakedWanderDesertThat MomentHallsBellsCollarsSingle Word Author:Jeffrey Eugenides
“It's often said that a traumatic experience early in life marks a person forever, pulls her out of line, saying, "Stay there. Don't move.” PersonsSaidMovingLinesForeverMarkTraumatic Experiences Book:Middlesex Source: Middlesex
“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.” IfsThinkingWorldWayLittlesPersonsBookDifferentDoneWholeCharacterHavensPerspectiveThirdsWhole WorldTraditionalEnjoyedNarrativeSectionsAnnaDifferent CharactersThird Person 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.” WayWritingPersonsCharacterAmountPicksFairs 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.” ThinkingWritingTryingPersonsCharacterMy OwnImagineApproachFemaleMalesGenderOne WomanFemale Characters Author:Jeffrey Eugenides
