Dave Eggers Quotes - Page 5

If you don't want anyone to know about your existence, you might as well kill yourself. You're taking up space, air.

He was feeling buoyant, flexible. He wanted to go jogging. He stood. He couldn't go jogging. He called room service and ordered a basket of breads and pastries.

Here I am Rock You Like a Hurricane.

Up there we see everything, Oakland to the left, El Cerrito and Richmond to the right, Marin forward, over the Bay, Berkeley below, all red rooftops and trees of cauliflower and columbine, shaped like rockets and explosions, all those people below us, with humbler views; we see the Bay Bridge, clunkety, the Richmond Bridge, straight, low, the Golden Gate, red toothpicks and string, the blue between, the blue above, the gleaming white Land of the Lost/Superman's North Pole Getaway magic crystals that are San Francisco.

In all my life I'd never been approached this way, the car pulling up, the Where you going? It was something I wish had happened hundreds of times. I was a looker - someone who looked over at every car at every traffic light, hoping something would happen, and almost never finding anyone looking back - always everyone looking forwards, and every time I felt stupid. Why should people look at you? Why should they care?

To me any given story has its appropriate form. There might be some story I get involved with that's begging to be a graphic novel, so that will have to be that way.

A combination of acting, lying, begging, and cheating.

It's not that our family has no taste, it's just that our family's taste is inconsistent.

My voice and movements are restricted by the things I own.

Paper is a uniquely beautiful format, more so than the web, I think: you need to invest in the aesthetics.

You have what I can afford to give. You are a panhandler, begging for anything, and I am the man walking briskly by, tossing a quarter or so into your paper cup. I can afford to give you this. This does not break me.

This boy thinks I am not of his species, that I am some other kind of creature, one that can be crushed under the weight of a phone book. The pain is not great, but the symbolism is disagreeable.

How had this happened? Everyone in the world knew more than us, about everything, and this I hated then found hugely comforting.

Nothing again. No one is listening. No one is waiting to hear the kicking of a man above. It is unexpected. You have no ears for someone like me.

Every part of my body felt electric. My chest ached and my head throbbed with the great terrible limitless possibility of the morning, and when it came, the sky was washed white, everything was new, and I hadn't slept at all.

He wanted to fly in lightweight contraptions with her.

The air is like being wanted, we say, and they nod approvingly. The air is like getting older, they say, and they touch our arms gently.

When there is pleasure, there is often abandon, and mistakes are made.

She pulls away, pats me on the shoulder with three mini-pats, like those used to pet reptiles.

You're breaking out of character, again.

Hello Frances, I have just been to health class, and I was wondering how your feminine parts were developing.

His lies were so exquisite I almost wept.

When anybody starts out with a memoir, you get the impulse to tell your own story with your own voice, and you get all that out in one fell swoop sometimes.

You treat a kid with respect and as an adult you talk to them as if they're smart people. But you don't throw at them the trappings of adulthood and you know, the darker stuff.

If you think I'm annoying and preachy now, you should have known me in grade school.