Meg Wolitzer Quotes

High-fiving one another without evident irony.

But it had no doubt sprung from true emotion, for all that parents ever wanted, really, was for you to love their child the way they did.

Everyone basically has one aria to sing over their entire life, and this one is hers.

You had only one chance for a signature in life, but most people left no impression.

But you can't say that what you learn in English class doesn't matter. That great writing doesn't make a difference. I'm

Sometimes a mindfuck was a satisfying and productive fuck after all.

In a new environment, it was possible to transform.

But of course she liked Isadora less now, because she needed her less and saw her more clearly.

Everyone else seemed to be circling their desired careers, not inhabiting them yet.

I guess I feel like grief is this huge part of everything," I say in a burst. "But you're supposed to act like it's not.

They should hand out vibrators if they're going to demand so much of you that you can't find time for a private life.

Plus, constantly worrying about money is *boring*. Use your brain ... to be creative.

Now she felt as if she were dully humming with an unpleasant, low-grade drunkenness.

The train came, and Jules Jacobson stepped on and thought: I am the loneliest person in this subway car.

Words matter. All semester, we were looking for the words to say what we needed to say. We were all looking for our voice.

No one ever told you that in moment of crisis, family was allowed to trump friendship.

But the loss of possibilities was always undeniably painful.

He was a little young to go crazy, but it happened to people.

The world of law was filled with the fallen, but theater wasn't. No one ever "fell back" onto theater. You had to really, really want it.

It's basically my fear about what happens when you leave a room. Everyone says the thing about you that you really can't bear.

I've always had a fear of being small and ordinary. How can I just have this one life?

I've always been drawn to writing for young readers. The books that I read growing up remain in my mind very strongly.

It seemed that everywhere you went, people quickly adapted to the way they had to live, and called it Life.

I have never been much of a researcher

I think having the knowledge, plus the experiences you've lived through, make you definitely not fragile. They make you brave.

Good writing is good writing, and I'm so happy when I read it.

I might have things to look forward to again, things I can't even imagine yet.

No, of course not. I just feel content," she said carefully.
"That's an old person's word," said Ethan.

For me, a novel relying too heavily on a single idea might be a dry, deadly thing unless it possesses an animating force.

He was like a long beaker in chemistry class, and the top was always bubbling over because some interesting process was taking place inside

It's funny how you can go for a long time in life not needing someone, and then you meet them and you suddenly need them all the time

Is there anything sadder than the scrawniest little piece of uneaten chicken at a dinner party?"
"Hmm," said Jules. "Yes. The Holocaust.

What does a woman have to do to be seen as a serious person?"
"Be a man, I guess," Ethan said ...

I want an uncircumscribed world.

If someone said 'diametrically,' could 'opposed' be far behind?

Oh boo hoo, everyone's life was hard, and if you'd survived the hardship, why write about it? Survival itself was enough.

Everyone," she continues, looking around at all of us, "has something to say. But not everyone can bear to say it. Your job is to find a way.

Maybe googling people kills them ... You keep looking them up to see where they are, until one day you look them up and they're dead.

You are the only one I can trust about this, Ash said. Which was maybe just another version of what Cathy Kiplinger had said to Jules: you are weak.

First novels were always at least somewhat autobiographical,

Because when you're young, you don't really believe you'll ever be anything other than young.

If you hold on, if you force yourself as hard as you can to find some kind of patience in the middle of all your impatience, things can change.

My job does not define me.

Closure, that impossible thing that no one had ever experienced in life, because there always seemed to be a little aperture, a slit of light.

And then like two people jumping off a rock into water, I guess we both fell helplessly into sleep. I'm not sure which of us gets there first.

Sometimes it's easier to tell ourselves a story.

Books light the fire - whether it's a book that's already written, or an empty journal that needs to be filled in.

you sometimes feel totally unready for them, or even that they're

...age sixty-eight and still wanting love to exist in a pure column of light, still convinced that it could.

Wasn't the whole point of being an artist, or at least part of it, that you didn't have to wear a tie?

Dennis was present, still present, and this, she thought as she stayed landed against him, was no small talent.

You got caught up in some fantasy, and now you can't see anything at all.

In 'The Interestings' I wanted to write about what happens to talent over time. In some people talent blooms, in others it falls away.

We do seem, as a culture, to fetishize the "sweep." But I know there's room for "big" short, fierce novels, and "big" solid ones.

Because the truth is, the world will probably whittle your daughter down. But a mother never should.

...the Iraq war was the Ishtar of wars.

People could not get enough of what they had lost, even if they no longer wanted it.

There was no life Dennis burned to live except, it seemed, a life that wasn't depressed.

If you've written a powerful book about a woman and your publisher then puts a 'feminine' image on the cover, it 'types' the book.

The rest of life - that imperfect thing - waiting.

The generation that had information, but no context. Butter, but no bread. Craving, but no longing.

Even if you yourself were unhappy and anxious, whenever you glimpsed happiness in your child, you suddenly became happy too.

Sometimes you think people will be around forever, and then you lose them with no warning at all.

Even not knowing that yet, she felt an intuitive urgency. What she wanted
and wanted now
was to be loved by someone who excited her.

Both my mother and I have close groups of friends that include other writers, and these friendships are very important to us.

I've been waiting for someone to sign the permission slip for me to write about sex. In the meantime, I've written about sex in all my books anyway.

Maybe that was what it was like to be a writer: Even with the eyes closed, you could see.

Twitter. You know what it is? Termites with microphones.

I always thought talent was everything, but maybe it was always money. Or even class. Or if not class exactly, connections.

strangeness, and the other person decides just to listen and not exploit

The mind plays tricks on itself in order to stay in one piece.

Maybe the idea of the supposed tension between working and nonworking mothers had been put out in the world just to cause divisiveness.

It was exhausting being a schizophrenic, which he was still convinced he was.

This post-college world felt different from everything that had come before it ...

Twitter," said Manny, waving his hand. "You know what that is? Termites with microphones.

Jealousy was essentially "I want what you have," while envy was "I want what you have, but I also want to take it away so you can't have it.

Irony was new to her and tasted oddly good, like a previously unavailable summer fruit.

The food was bad but the conversation was vigorous as they sat and talked about many of the campers

The past is so tenacious.

Jill told him that he just didn't understand what it meant to have been so promising your whole life and now to be so disappointing in the end.

The child who was happy with herself meant the parents had won the jackpot.

Power structures were always fairly easy to figure out if you took a moment to observe the people involved.

Being a teacher at a restaurant in the town where you lived was a little like being a TV star ...

But of course people were different, she remembered; they were allowed to be different.

Because friend was encompassing, and here it encompassed so much, including the contradictions.

Just the act of sleeping beside someone you liked to be with. Maybe that was love.