Being serious is serious business in fiction. It's commercial or hoi polloi in fiction to be funny. It's too accessible to the great unwashed. Joshua Ferris More Quotes by Joshua Ferris More Quotes From Joshua Ferris I know what to do with my life. I just don't know what to do with this one night. Joshua Ferris one-night knows night You think I alienate myself from society? Of course I alienate myself from society. It’s the only way I know of not being constantly reminded of all the ways I’m alienated from society. Joshua Ferris courses way thinking It is forgivable to say nothing out of ignorance; it's inexcusable to remain silent once awareness dawns. Joshua Ferris awareness ignorance dawn To conform is to lose your soul Joshua Ferris your-soul conform soul All broken hearts are circumstantial. Every lovelorn jerk is the victim of bad timing, good intentions, and someone else’s poor decision making. Joshua Ferris poor-decisions broken heart A child, thought Carl, is not the only result of childbirth. A mother, too, is born. You see them every day--nondescript women with a bulge just above the groin, slightly double-chinned. Perpetually forty. Someone's mother, you think. There is a child somewhere who has made this woman into a mother, and for the sake of the child she has altered her appearance to better play the part. Joshua Ferris mother children thinking There were times where I felt I was pressing a little bit too hard with the humor, and I had to pull back, because the overriding concern of the book was to create this disease that had no cure and make you pay attention to every emotional stage of what happens. Joshua Ferris emotional attention book We had the great good fortune and shortcomings of character that marked every generation that had never seen war. Joshua Ferris generations character war Some days felt longer than other days. Some days felt like two whole days. Unfortunately those days were never weekend days. Our Saturdays and Sundays passed in half the time of a normal workday. In other words, some weeks it felt like we worked ten straight days and had only one day off. Joshua Ferris weekend sunday two The main questions of everyday life are too enormous to answer in any definitive sense. Joshua Ferris everyday-life everyday answers I wake up every day in order to do something that's quixotic, and not necessarily called for in the world, but I do it because there's extraordinary meaning for me behind the effort. Joshua Ferris wake-up effort world I've always thought things were absurd. It would take a lot more effort for me to see things as reasonable. Joshua Ferris reasonable absurd effort Without work, so much of one's identity just evaporates. Joshua Ferris identity After I left college I thought, very naively, that either you became someone interesting - an artist - or you went into academia. If you ended up in an office you were dull and lacking. And I ended up in an office. Joshua Ferris artist college interesting The thing is, for me, as a fiction writer, I don't think there's a finer testament to our lives than this thing that's being spurned - the emotional intelligence, the ethics, the beauty. It's all there. It's all so fully contained in a novel that succeeds. But at the same time, I understand the impulse to put away childish things. Joshua Ferris succeed emotional thinking Every time you hear someone read your book and liked your book, you're never sure whether that's going to follow with a similar remark from someone else. Perhaps I have low expectations, but whenever I hear someone say, 'I liked your book,' I don't know if it's going to happen again. Joshua Ferris expectations lows book I believe people think as a group more often than we might realize or care to admit. We like to believe that we act as individuals and nothing more, but time and again - in corporations and business, in politics and religion, in fashion and culture, and in friendships and social circles - we think and do as one. Joshua Ferris fashion believe thinking I come from a very illustrious line of divorces. We love to get divorced in my family. My mother and father have been married four times each - eight ceremonies with the best of intentions. Joshua Ferris divorce mother father The internet takes a lot of the anxiety of life away. It's a kind of deity. You're never lonely. You're always distracted. If you spend enough time on it, there's not really that nagging sensation of existential despair; it erases it very effectively. And it's monolithic. And thanks to it, we've got the ways to linger there after death - your blog exists afterwards, your e-mail exists afterwards. Joshua Ferris despair anxiety lonely Yet for all the depression no one ever quit. When someone quit, we couldn't believe it. 'I'm becoming a rafting instructor on the Colorado River,' they said. 'I'm touring college towns with my garage band.' We were dumbfounded. It was like they were from another planet. Where had they found the derring-do? What would they do about car payments? We got together for going away drinks on their final day and tried to hide our envy while reminding ourselves that we still had the freedom and luxury to shop indiscriminately. Joshua Ferris colorado-river college believe
