Quotessence
Home / Authors / Jennifer Egan
Jennifer Egan

Jennifer Egan Quotes

Novelist

Filter quotes by topic

AllWayThinkingWritingFeelsIfsKnowsPeopleLooksFeltFictionPersonsSeemsWantYearsFirstsInterestingMomentsRealGirlHair

Famous Jennifer Egan Quotes

“the presence of an old salt aboard the Elizabeth Seaman was profoundly reassuring. “Iron men in wooden boats,” they were called, as opposed to the wooden men in iron boats of today, like Kittredge, Farmingdale, and Eddie himself. Old salts partook of an origin myth, being close to the root of all things, including language. Eddie had never noticed how much of his own speech derived from the sea, from “keeled over” to “learning the ropes” to “catching the drift” to “freeloader” to “gripe” to “brace up” to “taken aback” to “leeway” to “low profile” to “the bitter end,” or the very last link on a chain. Using these expressions in a practical way made him feel close to something fundamental—a deeper truth whose contours he believed he’d sensed, allegorically, even while still on land. Being at sea had brought Eddie nearer that truth. And the old salts were nearer still.”

FictionNovelBoatSailingSailboatBoatsBoatingSailboats
Author:Jennifer Egan
Create image

“I write my first draft by hand, at least for fiction. For non-fiction, I write happily on a computer, but for fiction I write by hand, because I'm trying to achieve a kind of thoughtless state, or an unconscious instinctive state. I'm not reading what I write when I wrote. It's an unconscious outpouring that's a mess, and it's many, many steps away from anything anyone would want to read. Creating that way seems to generate the most interesting material for me to work with, though.”

WayWantWritingTryingFirstsKindStatesHandsSeemsReadingInterestingFictionStepsAchieveMaterialsComputerCreatingMessUnconsciousMost InterestingNon Fiction
Author:Jennifer Egan
Create image

“I write fiction longhand. That's not so much about rejecting technology as being unable to write fiction on a computer for some reason. I don't think I would write it on a typewriter either. I write in a very blind gut instinctive way. It just doesn't feel right. There's a physical connection. And then in nonfiction that's not the case at all. I can't even imagine writing nonfiction by hand.”

ThinkingWayFeelsWritingI CanReasonHandsFictionCasesTechnologyImagineComputerConnectionsBlindGutsNonfictionTypewritersFeels RightRejectingWriting Nonfiction
Author:Jennifer Egan
Create image