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" I hate the word 'partner' so much. "

Jonathan Franzen

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" I look at my father, who was in many ways an unhappy person, but who, not long before he got sick, said that the greatest source of satisfaction in his life had been going to work in the company of other workers. "

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" For most of my life, I didn't pay attention to birds. "

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" It's very liberating for me to realize that I don't have to step up to the plate with a plot that involves the U.N. Security Council. "

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" One reason that birds matter - ought to matter - is that they are our last, best connection to a natural world that is otherwise receding. They're the most vivid and widespread representatives of the Earth as it was before people arrived on it. "

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" I was unwise enough to actually mention this in public a few times, and in fact to point out that there were two versions of the book now. One of them had somebody else's name on the cover, one had my name on the cover. "

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" To read is to have experiences; every book changes my life at least a little bit. The first time I can remember this happening was when I was 10, with a biography of Thomas Edison. "

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" I'm a poor person who has money. "

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" I feel as if I'm clearly part of a trend among writers who take themselves seriously - and I confess to taking myself as seriously as the next writer. "

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" It's not surprising to see in my own work, looking back, and in the work of some of my peers, an attention to family. It's nice to write a book that does tend toward significance and meaning, and where else are you sure of finding it? "

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" I was a late child from my parents, so I grew up surrounded by people a lot older than me. I think even when I was 21, I felt like I was a 70-year-old man. "

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" It seems to me self-evident that if you have a life, things happen in it, and certain things do change; certain things end. People you know die. "

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" I voluntarily inflicted a certain level of insanity on myself. "

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" But as far as being popular, yeah, I think Dave Barry is really funny. "

Jonathan Franzen

" I'm not fussy about my food. "

Jonathan Franzen

" I defy anyone to finish Halldor Laxness's 'Independent People' without wetting the pages with tears. "

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" We may freak out globally, but we suffer locally. "

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" The Mekons were kind of like the background music of my life. "

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" I used to think it was hard to write, and I still find the process more or less unpleasant, but if I know what I'm doing it rattles along, then the rewrite whips it into shape rather quickly. "

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" It's just a matter of writing the kind of book I enjoy reading. Something better be happening at the beginning, and then on every page after, or I get irritated. "

Jonathan Franzen

" A big part of me would be very proud never having anything of mine adapted, because if you want the real experience, there's only one way to get it. You're going to actually have to be a reader. "

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" I hate that word dysfunction. "

Jonathan Franzen

" If you're interested in how people behave, if you're interested in the way they talk about themselves, the way the conceive of themselves, it's very hard to ignore drugs nowadays, because that is so much part of the conversation. "

Jonathan Franzen

" I had a brief period of questioning whether I should perhaps adopt a child. And my New Yorker editor, Henry Finder, was horrified by the notion. "

Jonathan Franzen

" I hate Whole Foods. "

Jonathan Franzen

" I think cultures of conformity produce vast quantities of shame, both in people who simply can't conform and people who do conform, but underneath, they're not feeling conformist. "

Jonathan Franzen

" When I finally gave up any hope of doing anything representative of the American family, I actually seemed to have tapped into other people's weirdness in that way. "

Jonathan Franzen

" I don't even read positive reviews unless they are absolutely certified by eight different people to not contain one thing that could upset me. "

Jonathan Franzen

" I wrote two plotted books, got some of the fundamentals of storytelling down, then... it's sort of like taking the training wheels off, trying to write a book that's fun in the same way without relying on quite such mechanical or external beats. "

Jonathan Franzen

" I am not somebody who goes around saying men are superior or that male writers are superior. In fact, I really go out of my way to champion women's work that I think is not getting enough attention. None of that is ever enough. Because a villain is needed. It's like there's no way to make myself not male. "

Jonathan Franzen

" Only in my 40s did I become a person whose heart lifts whenever he hears a grosbeak singing or a towhee calling, and who hurries out to see a golden plover that's been reported in the neighbourhood, just because it's a beautiful bird, with truly golden plumage, and has flown all the way from Alaska. "

Jonathan Franzen