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Jonathan Franzen Biography

Jonathan Franzen

Jonathan Earl Franzen (born August 17, 1959) is an American novelist and essayist. His 2001 novel The Corrections, a sprawling, satirical family drama, drew widespread critical acclaim, earned Franzen a National Book Award, was a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist, earned a James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. His novel Freedom (2010) garnered similar praise and led to an appearance on the cover of Time magazine alongside the headline "Great American Novelist".

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Jonathan Franzen Quotes

But the first lesson reading teaches is how to be alone.

Alone, Firsts, Lesson, Lessons, Reading, Teaches

Everything he'd done with regard to her in the last three years had been calculated to foreclose the intensely personal sort of talks they'd had when he was younger: to get her to shut up, to train her to contain herself, to make her stop pestering him with her overfull heart and her uncensored self. And now that the training was complete and she was obediently trivial with him, he felt bereft of her and wanted to undo it.

Complete, Heart, Self, Train, Years

Once there are good sentences on the page, I can feel a loyalty to them and start following their logic, and take refuge from myself.

Logic, Loyalty, Pages, Sentences, Start

When you stay in your room and rage or sneer or shrug your shoulders, as I did for many years, the world and its problems are impossibly daunting. But when you go out and put yourself in real relation to real people, or even just real animals, there’s a very real danger that you might end up loving some of them. And who knows what might happen to you then?

Animal, Loving, Real, Shrug, Years

Our lives look a lot more interesting when they’re filtered through the sexy Facebook interface. We star in our own movies, we photograph ourselves incessantly, we click the mouse and a machine confirms our sense of mastery.

Sexy, Stars, Interesting, Photograph, Mastery

Certain kinds of things that the novel used to do, which was, "Oh, I'm living out here in West Nowhere, Nebraska and I'm curious how the upper class in New York City lives, I guess I'll read a novel about it. " We don't have to do that now. You just turn on the TV. Turn on Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous. You can get that information anywhere. Novels don't have to do that anymore.

Cities, Class, New York, Novel, Rich, Used

It was a way of recognizing places of enchantment: people falling asleep like this.

Fall, People, Enchantment, Asleep

It's doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction.

Connections, Doubtful, Fiction, Writing

He watched a catbird hopping around in an azalea that was readying itself to bloom; he envied the bird for knowing nothing of what he knew; he would have swapped souls with it in a heartbeat. And then to take wing, to know the air's buoyancy even for an hour: the trad was a no-brainer, and the catbird, with its lively indifference to him, its sureness of physical selfhood, seemed well aware of how preferable it was to be the bird.

Air, Azaleas, Hour, Knowing, Selfhood, Take

He had a happy canine way of seeking approval without seeming insecure.

Approval, Insecure, Seeking, Seeming, Way

Popularity has become its own justification.

Become, Justification, Popularity

The reason this system can’t be overthrown in this country,” Walter said, “is all about freedom. The reason the free market in Europe is tempered by socialism is that they’re not so hung up on personal liberties there. They also have lower population growth rates, despite comparable income levels. The Europans are all-around more rational, basically. And the conversation about rights in this country isn’t rational. It’s taking place on the level of emotion, and class resentments, which is why the right is so good at exploiting it.

Class, Country, Emotion, Income, Rates, Rights

It offended his sense of himself, because he was an individual from an age of individuals, and a string of lights was, like him, an individual thing. No matter how little the thing had cost, to throw it away was to deny its value.

Age, Cost, Light, Thing, Throw

Mr. Franzen said he and Mr. Wallace, over years of letters and conversations about the ethical role of the novelist, had come to the joint conclusion that the purpose of writing fiction was “a way out of loneliness. ” (NY Times article on the memorial service of David Foster Wallace. )

Conversations, David, Loneliness, Role, Writing, Years

Nice people don't necessarily fall in love with nice people.

Fall, Falling In Love, Funny, Love, Nice, Witty

Deploring other people--their lack of perfection--had always been our sport.

Deploring, Lack, People, Perfection, Sport, Sports

There's a hazardous sadness to the first sounds of someone else's work in the morning; it's as if stillness experiences pain in being broken.

Broken, Experiences, Morning, Pain, Sadness, Stillness

You're either reading a book or you're not.

Book, Reading

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.

Company, Father, Long, Sick, Unhappy Person, Workers

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.

Book, Enjoy, Irritated, Matter, Reading, Writing

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