Quotessence
Home / Authors / Jonathan Franzen
Jonathan Franzen

Jonathan Franzen Quotes

Novelist

Filter quotes by topic

AllIfsWritingFranzenPeopleWayWorldBookJonathan FranzenFictionSelfThinkingKindNovelKnowsLovePersonsProblemReadingSaidSeems

Famous Jonathan Franzen Quotes

“Depression presents itself as a realism regarding the rottenness of the world in general and the rottenness of your life in particular. But the realism is merely a mask for depression's actual essence, which is an overwhelming estrangement from humanity. The more persuaded you are of your unique access to the rottenness, the more afraid you become of engaging with the world; and the less you engage with the world, the more perfidiously happy-faced the rest of humanity seems for continuing to engage with it.”

WorldSeemsHumanityParticularDepressionUniqueEssenceAccessMaskOverwhelmingRealismContinuingEngagingAlienationEstrangement
Book:How to Be Alone: Essays
Create image

“Depression, when it's clinical, is not a metaphor. It runs in families, and it's known to respond to medication and to counseling. However truly you believe there's a sickness to existence that can never be cured, if you're depressed you will sooner or later surrender and say: I just don't want to feel bad anymore. The shift from depressive realism to tragic realism, from being immobilized by darkness to being sustained by it, thus strangely seems to require believing in the possibility of a cure.”

IfsWantFeelsBelieveSeemsRunningExistenceKnownDarknessPossibilityMetaphorSurrenderCuresSicknessTragicRealismSooner Or LaterDepressingMedicationCounselingClinicalsDepressive
Author:Jonathan Franzen
Create image