One of the reasons I like Barthes more than other writers of that ilk is because he had a literary quality. Jeffrey Eugenides Read Quote
I mean, when I got to Brown, the place was riven, because you had older professors who were basically new critics and had been teaching a certain way for 30 years. And then you had this other gang who was down with the semiotic program. And as a student, you were, in a way, forced to choose which cohort you were going with. Jeffrey Eugenides Read Quote
I’m aware of cliches and I’m aware of experiments that have been done and I’m aware of a kind of deadness to a lot of realism both in the language and in the structure of a book. Jeffrey Eugenides Read Quote
What I do when I create a character is put in details from all the people I know who might be like that person, and then put in a huge amount of myself. Jeffrey Eugenides Read Quote
I’m not really an autobiographical writer, though I use lots of stuff from my life to make my stories seem real. But when I actually write about myself, I get very confused. Jeffrey Eugenides Read Quote
I was engrossed with the book, I was having difficulties with it, and I just didn’t notice the years were going by. Jeffrey Eugenides Read Quote
I have a very beautiful room that in my house that we bought in Princeton. It’s glass on three sides, and you’d think that’s the perfect place to write. Somehow in that nice room I feel too exposed, and I can notice I’m too distracted by things going on, so I end up writing in a not-very-nice office bedroom. Jeffrey Eugenides Read Quote
I always work in a room where there’s no Internet to keep from being distracted so easily. Jeffrey Eugenides Read Quote
A few years ago in Chicago, I rented an office, and I went there every day. For the most part I do work at home in an ugly room. Jeffrey Eugenides Read Quote
