“I was on a very bumpy plane ride, an overnight flight. I was so misera...” — Jennifer Egan Quote

“I was on a very bumpy plane ride, an overnight flight. I was so miserable, and I pulled out 'David Copperfield,' and I forgot how scared and tired I was, and I thought, 'This is what reading should be.' I'm utterly transported out of my current situation.”

“I wasn't a kid who wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be a doctor. I was kind of morbid. I was really into the body and how it could go wrong. I wanted to dig up bodies from the graveyard.”

“Comparison is painful. Don't be cowed by other people's pretty pictures. When you feel unimpressive, or irrelevant, that has nothing to do with what you're actually capable of.”

“I hope to keep writing journalism as long as I write fiction; it's afforded me such amazing adventures and opportunities. It does take a lot of time, so it's hard to do both at once, but I try to do a big journalism piece every couple of years, and I'll hopefully continue with that.”

“When the clock stops on a life, all things emanating from it become precious, finite, and cordoned off for preservation. Each aspect of the dead person is removed from the flux of the everyday, which, of course, is where we miss him most. The quarantine around death makes it feel unlucky and wrong--a freakish incursion--and the dead, thus quarantined, come to seem more dead than they already are.... Borrowing from the dead is a way of keeping them engaged in life's daily transactions--in other words, alive.”

“If this ice melts in Greenland it can shut down the Gulf Current.”

“I have always tried to stay current.”

“Behind a leader there must be followers, but they should always be on the lookout for the main chance and ready to change sides if the current leader doesn't deliver.”

“I'm not really a current events guy, sadly.”

“Country taught me how to sing, it put me on a path. But I was never going to be locked into a formula. I don't want to be considered a current country artist.”

“Moral licensing comes into play when people rely on past behavior to dismiss current prejudiced behavior. This is better known as the 'Some of my best friends are...' defense.”