Home / Quotes / Quote by Jonathan Franzen

Quote by Jonathan Franzen

“If you want to have friends, you have to remember that nobody's perfect.”

Quote by Jonathan Franzen

Book:Freedom: A Novel

Work

Freedom: A Novel

This novel delves into the complexities of individual and collective freedom, examining the struggles and triumphs of its characters as they navigate the challenges of their personal and political landscapes. more

Author

Jonathan Franzen

American contemporary novelist, known for his profound social insight and unique literary style. His works include 'The Corrections' and 'Freedom'. more

You May Also Like

“The writer’s life is a life of revisions.”

Life Is Revision

Author:Jonathan Franzen

“When you stay in your room and rage or sneer or shrug your shoulders, as I did for many years, the world and its problems are impossibly daunting. But when you go out and put yourself in real relation to real people, or even just real animals, there’s a very real danger that you might end up loving some of them. And who knows what might happen to you then?”

People Knows World Years Real Ends Problem Might Happens Animal Rooms Danger Relation Rage Shoulders Your Room Sneer

Author:Jonathan Franzen

“If you read the biographies of people who have written good books, you often see the point where they suddenly come into themselves, and those weeks in the spring of 1997 were when I came into myself as a writer. They feel like some of the best weeks of writing I’ll ever have. The discovery that I could write better about something as trivial as an ordinary family dinner than I could about the exploding prison population of the United States, and the corporatization of American life, and all the other things I’d been trying to do, was a real revelation.”

“Twitter is unspeakably irritating. Twitter stands for everything I oppose.”

Author:Jonathan Franzen

“The most purely autobiographical fiction requires pure invention. Nobody ever wrote a more autobiographical story than "The Metamorphosis".”

Stories Fiction Pure Invention

Author:Jonathan Franzen

“The place of stillness that you have to go to to write, but also to read seriously, is the point where you can actually make responsible decisions, where you can actually engage productively with an otherwise scary and unmanageable world.”

World Writing Decision Responsible Scary Stillness

Author:Jonathan Franzen

“Expecting a novel to bear the weight of our whole disturbed society—to help solve our contemporary problems—seems to me a peculiarly American delusion. To write sentences of such authenticity that refuge can be taken in them: isn't this enough? Isn't it a lot?”

Writing Enough Whole Helping Problem Seems Novel Taken Bears Weight Solve Sentences Contemporary Authenticity Delusion Expecting Refuge Disturbed

Book:How to Be Alone: Essays

Source: How to Be Alone: Essays

“Our lives look a lot more interesting when they’re filtered through the sexy Facebook interface. We star in our own movies, we photograph ourselves incessantly, we click the mouse and a machine confirms our sense of mastery.”

Looks Stars Interesting Our Lives Machines Photograph Sexy Mastery Mice Clicks Incessantly Interfaces

Book:Farther Away: Essays

Source: Farther Away: Essays

“To me, the point of a novel is to take you to a still place. You can multitask with a lot of things, but you can’t really multitask reading a book.”

Stills Book Reading Novel

Author:Jonathan Franzen

“Seriously, the world is changing so quickly that if you had any more than 80 years of change I don't see how you could stand it psychologically.”

Ifs World Years

Author:Jonathan Franzen