Jonathan Franzen against Modernity

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

I’m putting some faith in the seemingly inexhaustible font of weirdness I seem to carry around with me.

I feel as if I’m clearly part of a trend among writers who take themselves seriously - and I confess to taking myself as seriously as the next writer.

I voluntarily inflicted a certain level of insanity on myself.

You have to become a different person to write the next book. The person you are already wrote the last book.

To expose your whole self, not just the likable surface, and to have it rejected, can be catastrophically painful.

I would stress that I personally am not anti-cat.

To find myself being in the position of giving offense to someone who’s a hero-not a hero of mine per se, but a hero in general-I feel bad in a public-spirited way.

I see this as my book, my creation, and I didn’t want that logo of corporate ownership on it.

Cats are the sociopaths of the pet world, a species domesticated as an evil necessary for the control of rodents and subsequently fetishized the way unhappy countries fetishize their militaries.