Quotes By Author: Jeffrey Eugenides

“The last thing the hockey ball symbolized was Time itself, the unstoppability of it, the way we’re chained to our bodies, which are chained to Time.”

“She thought a writer should work harder writing a book than she did reading it.”

“O Earth, lie heavily upon her eyes;Seal her sweet eyes weary of watching Earth;Lie close around her; leave no room for mirthWith its harsh laughter, nor for sound of sighs.She hath no questions, she hath no replies.”

“It was amazing how it worked: the tiniest bit of truth made credible the greatest lies.”

“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.”

“There was nowhere I could go that wouldn’t be you.”

“A love story can never be about full possession. The happy marriage, the requited love, the desire that never dims–these are lucky eventualites but they aren’t love stories. Love stories depend on disappointment, on unequal births and feuding families, on matrimonial boredom and at least one cold heart. Love stories, nearly without exception, give love a bad name.We value love not because it’s stronger than death but because it’s weaker. Say what you want about love: death will finish it. You will not go on loving in the grave, not in any physical way that will at all resemble love as we know it on earth. The perishable nature of love is what gives love its importance in our lives. If it were endless, if it were on tap, love wouldn’t hit us the way it does.And we certainly wouldn’t write about it.”

“In the end, it wasn’t death that surprised her but the stubbornness of life.”

“Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind.”