The fundamental fact about all of us is that we’re alive for a while but will die before long. This fact is the real root cause of all our anger and pain and despair. And you can either run from this fact or, by way of love, you can embrace it. - Jonathan Franzen
The ultimate goal of technology, the telos of techne, is to replace a natural world that’s indifferent to our wishes — a world of hurricanes and hardships and breakable hearts, a world of resistance — with a world so responsive to our wishes as to be, effectively, a mere extension of the self. - Jonathan Franzen
When I'm writing I don't want anyone else in the room - including myself. - Jonathan Franzen
Every good writer I know needs to go into some deep, quiet place to do work that is fully imagined. And what the Internet brings is lots of vulgar data. It is the antithesis of the imagination. It leaves nothing to the imagination. - Jonathan Franzen
It's doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction. - Jonathan Franzen
You're either reading a book or you're not. - Jonathan Franzen
The madness of an autumn prairie cold front coming through...ringing throughout the house was an alarm bell that no one but Alfred and Enid could hear directly. - Jonathan Franzen
An odd thing about beauty, however, is that it's absence tends not to arouse our sympathy as much as other forms of privation do. - Jonathan Franzen