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[T]hat I could find company and consolation and hope in an object pulled almost at random from a bookshelf--felt akin to an instance of religious grace.
Jonathan Franzen...She felt that nothing could kill her hope now, nothing. She was seventy-five and she was going to make some changes in her life.
Jonathan FranzenBut nothing disturbs the feeling of specialness like the presence of other human beings feeling identically special.
Jonathan FranzenFiction is a particularly effective way for strangers to connect across time and distance
Jonathan FranzenWhen 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, thereโs a very real danger that you might end up loving some of them. And who knows what might happen to you then?
Jonathan Franzen