If they were going to kill you, would they knock?

— Jeffrey Eugenides

I mean, in the end it wasn't up to me. The big things never are. Birth, I mean, and death. And love. And what love bequeaths to use before we're born.

— Jeffrey Eugenides

I'm not sure, with a grandmother like mine, if you can ever become a true American in the sense of believing that life is about the pursuit of happiness.

— Jeffrey Eugenides

In Detroit, in July 1967, what happened was no less than a guerrilla uprising. The Second American Revolution.

— Jeffrey Eugenides

In Madeleine's face was a stupidity Mitchell had never seen before. It was the stupidity of all normal people. It was the stupidity of the fortunate and the beautiful, of everybody who got what they wanted in life and so remained unremarkable.

— Jeffrey Eugenides

In the end, it wasn't death that surprised her but the stubbornness of life.

— Jeffrey Eugenides

I saw the movie," he said. "I know what it's about. Listen to this. When girls get to be about twelve or so"—he leaned toward us—"their tits bleed.

— Jeffrey Eugenides

It's often said that a traumatic experience early in life marks a person forever, pulls her out of line, saying, "Stay there. Don't move.

— Jeffrey Eugenides

It was always embarrassing when professors assigned their own books. Even Madeleine, who found all the reading hard going, could tell that Zipper stein’s contribution to the field was reformulate and second-tier.

— Jeffrey Eugenides

It was amazing how it worked: the tiniest bit of truth made credible the greatest lies.

— Jeffrey Eugenides