A Visit from the Goon Squad was published on June 8, 2010 by Jennifer Egan. It has 13 chapters, and each one is a separate independent story, yet they all work and read well together. In 2011, her novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award. This novel explored time and how society and cultures change, showing this through the many characters featured throughout the story.
While this is Egan’s best-known book, she wrote three books before A Visit from the Goon Squad. She also wrote two more books since and has published several short stories. To check them out, visit her official website.
I think that books, or even just quotes from books, are one of the best places for inspiration. The way different writers structure their sentences, the different perspectives on life, love, hope, existence, and everything gives me so much to consider. The quotes in the article have, in some way, spoken to me, whether they gave me hope for the future or made me question life and my purpose in it.
Hope and Love
It’s so easy to lose hope in life and in ourselves. Likewise, we sometimes forget to love ourselves and those around us. Maybe we’re too busy with stressful tasks, or we just think hope and love sound too cliché and corny. But these two are virtues that we need in life.
I’m always happy, Sasha said. Sometimes I just forget.
Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad
Sure, everything is ending, Jules said, but not yet.
Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad
There’s a fine line between thinking about somebody and thinking about not thinking about somebody, but I have the patience and the self-control to walk that life for hours — days, if I have to.
Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad
I’m sorry and I believe in you and I’ll always be near you, protecting you, and I will never leave you, I’ll be curled around your heart for the rest of your life.
Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad
Questioning Existence
Life changes for everyone as we get older and go through different experiences. As we age, we have more questions about life. Why do we exist? What is the meaning of anything? It isn’t always pleasant, but these questions are often necessary to understand ourselves, others, and how society is structured, and even how it has changed over time.
Like all failed experiments, that one taught me something I didn’t expect: one key ingredient of so-called experience is the delusional faith that it is unique and special, that those included in it are privileged and those excluded from it are missing out.
Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad
There are so many ways to go wrong. All we’ve got are metaphors, and they’re never exactly right. You can never just Say. The. Thing.
Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad
Structural dissatisfaction: Returning to circumstances that once pleased you, after having experienced a more thrilling or opulent way of life, and finding that you can no longer tolerate them.
Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad
Redemption, transformation— God how she wanted these things. Every day, every minute. Didn’t everyone?
Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad
Death—Literal and Figurative—is Always Here
This may sound strange, but sometimes I forget that we are surrounded by death. There’s literal death –where a person is buried and is no longer living in any means. There is also figurative death, where someone may have lost themselves or their personality. Unfortunately, death in both sense are easily attainable, which is why it’s important to remember them.
I’m done. I’m old, I’m sad — that’s on a good day. I want out of this mess. But I don’t want to fade away, I want to flame away — I want my death to be an attraction, a spectacle, a mystery. A work of art.
Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad
What he needed was to find fifty more people like him, who had stopped being themselves without realizing it.
Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad
Her only thought was of getting away, as if she were carrying a live grenade from inside the house, so that when it exploded, it would destroy just herself.
Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad
Huh, I Never Thought of That
These last two are quotes that didn’t fit into a category, but that made me stop and think “Huh, I never thought of that” (hence the subtitle). These types of quotes (at least for me) are usually ones that give me a different view of a common occurence, idea, etc. That’s the most extraordinary: making someone think about a common, everyday item, idea, etc. in a new light.
Everybody sounds stoned, because they’re e-mailing people the whole time they’re talking to you.
Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad
It’s turning out to be a bad day, a day when the sun feels like teeth.
Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad
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