Dave Eggers Quotes & Sayings

Here I am Rock You Like a Hurricane. — Dave Eggers

1. The Amazing Race
2. I Thought This Show Was Gonna Be About Aryans
3. Oh.
(Joe O'Neill, from Opium) — Dave Eggers

Why do we pursue information that we know will never leave our heads? — Dave Eggers

But we're no longer rain, I said, we're no longer seeds. We're men. Now we can stand and decide. This is our first chance to choose our own unknown. I'm so proud of everything we've done, my brothers, and if we're fortunate enough to fly and land again in a new place, we must continue. As impossible as it sounds, we must keep walking. And yes, there has been suffering, but now there will be grace. There has been pain, but now there will be serenity. No one has been tried the way we have been tried, and now this is our reward. — Dave Eggers

Because I grew up with this naive expectation of people doing right, I get shocked by every little violation. — Dave Eggers

We lose weeks like buttons, like pencils. — Dave Eggers

Courage was the beginning, being unafraid, moving ahead, through small hardships, not turning back. Courage was simply a form of moving forward. — Dave Eggers

Morning comes like a scream through a pinhole. — Dave Eggers

Kit, you say your mother hasn't changed, but she has. A hundred times she's changed. It's important to know with adults, thought there is continual development, there is not always improvement. There is change, but not necessarily growth. — Dave Eggers

They started a great fire in the middle of the market, and from this fire they took burning logs and torches, and these they threw onto the roofs of most of the homes within a one-mile radius. The few men who resisted were shot. This was effectively the end of any kind of life in Marial Bai for some time. Again, the rebels for whom this was retribution were nowhere to be found. — Dave Eggers

But Tom," said the moon, "the swinging of your pendulums! Everyone's a pendulum swinging, to and fro, and always you're getting hit by someone else's swinging pendulum. You're minding your own business, but someone else'e pendulum is swinging around, and pow! you get it in the head. — Dave Eggers

I prefer the dark part of the night, after midnight and before four-thirty, when it's more bare, more hollow. Then I can breathe, and can think while others are sleeping, in a way can stop time, can have it so - this has always been my dream - so that while everyone else is frozen, I can work busily about them, doing whatever it is that needs to be done, like the elves who make the shoes while the children sleep. — Dave Eggers

I am the Olympics. — Dave Eggers

I was born into a town and a family and the town ad my family happened to me. I own none of it. It is everyone's. It is shareware. I like it, I like having been a part of it, I would kill or die to protect those who are part of it, but I don not claim exclusivity. Have it Take it from me. Do with is what you will. Make it useful. This is like making electricity from dirt; it is almost too good to be believed, that we can make beauty from this stuff. — Dave Eggers

You don't propose marriage after one date. You don't decide on a career after one article or class session. You don't cast your vote based on one opinion of the candidate in question. Stories, essays, novels, and memoirs all deserve to be, indeed have to be read multiple times. Every writer worth his or her salt knows that writing is rewriting. Every reader should know the same thing about understanding text: that is, real reading is rereading. — Dave Eggers

And worse, you're not doing anything interesting anymore. You're not seeing anything, saying anything. The weird paradox is that you think you're at the center of things, and that makes your opinions more valuable, but you yourself are becoming less vibrant. I bet you haven't done anything offscreen in months. Have you? — Dave Eggers

The issue is complex, but like many matters in Sudan, it is not as complex as Khartoum would want the west to believe. — Dave Eggers

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. — Dave Eggers

You can do and use the skills that you have. The schools need you. The teachers need you. Students and parents need you. They need your actual person: your physical personhood and your open minds and open ears and boundless compassion, sitting next to them, listening and nodding and asking questions for hours at a time. — Dave Eggers

When I rest my head on the couch I know that it's coming, coming like something in the mail, something sent away for. We know it is coming, but are not sure when
weeks? months? She is fifty one. I am twenty-one. My sister is twenty-three. My brothers are twenty-four and seven.
We are ready. We are not ready. People know.
Our house sits on a sinkhole. Our house is the one being swept up in the tornado, the little train-set model floating helplessly, pathetically around in the howling black funnel. We're weak and tiny. We're Grenada. There are men parachuting from the sky.
We are waiting for everything to finally stop working
the organs and systems, one by one, throwing up their hands
"The jig is up," says the endocrine; "I did what I could," says the stomach, or what's left of it; "We'll get em next time," adds the heart, with a friendly punch to the shoulder. — Dave Eggers

Street traders, unabashed about being wealthy, about being single and aggressive and possibly dangerous. He was a free-spending global titan in his early fifties who — Dave Eggers

Alan tried to reassure her the same way he always had.
--I'm the eye in the say, he said. I can see where you started and where you're going and it looks perfectly fine from up here. — Dave Eggers

She felt some measure of relief knowing that in the very least, on the open road she would have some time to think. — Dave Eggers

The inactive must justify their sloth by picking nits with those making an attempt - — Dave Eggers

The voice of the nickly reflection of the moon was not as deep as you might expect. It was a singer's voice, though, a tenor, one that loved itself without reservation.
I feel time like you dream. Your dreams are jumbled. You can't remember the order of your dreams, and when you recall them, the memories bend. Faces change. It's all in puddles and ripples. That's what time is for me. — Dave Eggers

There's no such thing as "The One", she once said. They were at dinner in Taipei, with a supplier and his wife. The couple had been married forty years. The idea that there's just one person in the world you're meant to be with, it's illogical, she said. She'd had a few drinks and was enjoying her own loud thoughts. The math just doesn't work! Who you end up with, it's really just an accident of proximity. — Dave Eggers

I had grown up as a fan of Studs Terkel. In Chicago he sort of looms large and is mentioned often. — Dave Eggers

There is travel and there are babies; everything else is drudgery and death. — Dave Eggers

Listen, twenty years ago, it wasn't so cool to have a calculator watch, right? And spending all day inside playing with your calculator watch sent a clear message that you weren't doing so well socially. And judgments like 'like' and 'dislike' and 'smiles' and 'frowns' were limited to junior high. Someone would write a note and it would say, 'Do you like unicorns and stickers?' and you'd say, 'Yeah, I like unicorns and stickers! Smile!' That kind of thing. But now it's not just junior high kids who do it, it's everyone, and it seems to me sometimes I've entered some inverted zone, some mirror world where the dorkiest shit in the world is completely dominant. The world has dorkified itself. — Dave Eggers

I really believe strongly that kids should be spared the runoff of their parents' lives and problems. — Dave Eggers

I fear that even if it is beautiful in the abstract, that my doing it knowing that it's beautiful and worse, knowing that I will very soon be documenting it, that in my pocket is a tape recorder brought for just that purpose - that all this makes this act of potential beauty somehow gruesome. I am a monster. — Dave Eggers

You willingly tie yourself to these leashes. And you willingly become utterly socially autistic. You no longer pick up on basic human communication clues. You're at a table with three humans, all of whom are looking at you and trying to talk to you, and you're staring at a screen, — Dave Eggers

When you're in your twenties in a new city where no one's from here, we're all sort of orphans. The only people that you can count on our bunch of people that you work with and that you know. You're only as good as the reliability of that latticework. — Dave Eggers

If you don't have something grand for men like us to be part of, we will take apart all the little things. Neighbourhood by neighbourhood. Building by building. Family by family. — Dave Eggers

People are strange, but more than that, they're good. They're good first, then strange. — Dave Eggers

I think newspapers shouldn't try to compete directly with the Web, and should do what they can do better, which may be long-form journalism and using photos and art, and making connections with large-form graphics and really enhancing the tactile experience of paper. — Dave Eggers

Animals howl, he had been told, to declare their existence. — Dave Eggers

Something about how all this could or would lead to totalitarianism. Her stomach sank. — Dave Eggers

There would be a time when the world created people stronger than them. When all of this got worked out. But until then there would be women and men like Hanne and Alan, who were imperfect and had no path toward perfection. — Dave Eggers

All we really want is for no one to have a boring life, to be impressive, so we can be impressed. ~ on the friends we choose. — Dave Eggers

The idea of 'Voice of Witness' is to let survivors and witnesses of human-rights abuses tell their story at length. It started with a course that I co-taught at U.C. Berkeley journalism school back in 2003. — Dave Eggers

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

He remained, weeks after awakening, in that period of early-morning consciousness that allows easy re-entry to dreaming. His limbs still tingled with the residue of sleep, and most days he wanted badly to allow it to overtake him again. — Dave Eggers

At this point there were good days, good weeks, when we pretended that it was acceptable that Jack had lived at all, that his life had been, in its truncated way, complete. This wasn't one of those days. — Dave Eggers

He wanted to fly in lightweight contraptions with her. — Dave Eggers

Under the guise of having every voice heard, you create mob rule, a filterless society where secrets are crimes. — Dave Eggers

Tim O'Brien's book about Vietnam, 'The Things They Carried', has won every award, is studied in college and is considered to be definitive. But it's fiction. — Dave Eggers

The men who are dropped in a jungle or a desert and expected video games and got mundanity and depravity and friends dying like animals. — Dave Eggers

Yousef had been lighthearted during his questions, but there was something very serious and sad under his smile, and Alan knew what it was. It was the knowledge that there would be no fighting, and there would be no struggle, no stand taken, and that the two of them, because they were not lacking materially, because despite injustices in their countries they were the recipients of preposterous bounty, would likely do nothing. They were content, they had won. The fighting would be done by others, elsewhere. — Dave Eggers

I went to public school all my life and all through college and I liked it. — Dave Eggers

As we all know here at the Circle, transparency leads to peace of mind. No longer — Dave Eggers

I smiled, though looking at William K caused me concern. He looked very ill, and he was my only mirror. We could not see ourselves so I relied on the appearance of the other boys, William K in particular, to know something of my own health. We ate the same food and were built in a similar way, so i watched him to see how thin i had become, how my eyes were growing more sunken. On this day i did not look good. — Dave Eggers

She backed away, looking at him, his shirt hiked up, his crotch exposed. She could think only of a campfire, one small log, all of it doused in milk. — Dave Eggers

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. — Dave Eggers

But of course there's no logic to San Francisco generally, a city built with putty and pipe cleaners, rubber cement and colored construction paper. It's the work of fairies, elves, happy children with new crayons — Dave Eggers

To struggle is to strengthen my faith, my hope and my belief in humanity. — Dave Eggers

We see the beauty within and cannot say no. — Dave Eggers

But the tools you guys create actually manufacture unnaturally extreme social needs. No — Dave Eggers

High school teachers who want to get reluctant readers turned around need to give the students some say in the reading list. Make it collaborative: The students will feel ownership, and everyone will dig in. — Dave Eggers

I wanted so many times while driving to flip, to skid and flip and fall from the car and have something happen. I wanted to land on my head and lose half of it, or land on my legs and lose one or both. I wanted something to happen so my choices would be fewer, so my map would have a route straight through, in red. I wanted limitations, boundaries, to ease the burden; because the agony, Jack, when we were up there in the dark, was in the silence! All I ever wanted was to know what to do. In these last months I've had no clue, I've been paralyzed by the quiet, and for a moment something spoke to me, and we came here, or came to Africa, and intermittently there were answers, intermittently there was a chorus and they sang to us and pointing, and were watching and approving, but just as often there was silence, and we stood blinking under the sun, or under the black sky, and we had to think of what to do next. — Dave Eggers

For a moment, she thought it natural in a way seeing a plane fall from the sky can seem natural, too. The horror comes later. — Dave Eggers

Max had to think about these new developments. He hadn't liked getting hit by a rock
his stomach still ached from then rock Judith had thrown
but then again, when his team had used rocks on Alexander, it had caused him to surrender. Now the Bad Guys only had three soldiers left, which would make victory for Max's team more likely. So now it made perfect sense. He was wrong to ban rocks, or even animals. The key was to use all the weapons at one's disposal, but to just make sure you won when you used them. — Dave Eggers

At Loch Mor we walked down a spongy hill to a valley. The sun was dropping then dropped, leaving a sky of frilly reds. The moon appeared too soon. The valley sloped around a teardrop-shaped lake, pink with the bizarre fuchsia bursts of the late-coming sunset. Violet heather bruised the green weedy ground as we jumped down. This was a place conceived in a burst of emotion by a melancholy boy. — Dave Eggers

You know how you finish a bag of chips and you hate yourself? You know you've done nothing good for yourself. That's the same feeling, and you know it is, after some digital binge. You feel wasted and hollow and diminished. — Dave Eggers

All I ever wanted was to know what to do. — Dave Eggers

Whatever I do, however I find a way to live, I will tell these stories. I have spoken to every person I have encountered these last difficult days ... I speak to these people, and I speak to you because I cannot help it. It gives me strength, almost unbelievable strength, to know that you are there. I covet your eyes, your ears, the collapsible space between us. How blessed are we to have each other? I am alive and you are alive and so we must fill the air with our words. I will fill today, tomorrow, every day until I am taken back to God. I will tell stories to people who will listen and to people who don't want to listen, to people who seek me out and to those who run. All the while I will know that you are there. How can I pretend that you do not exist? It would be almost as impossible as you pretending that I do not exist. — Dave Eggers

SECRETS ARE LIES SHARING IS CARING PRIVACY IS THEFT — Dave Eggers

But everyone disappears, no matter who loves them. — Dave Eggers

It was a sad place, especially after a day at the Circle, where all was made with care and love and the gift of a good eye. — Dave Eggers

But what I really want is to just swim around in a warm baby pool of these friends, jump in their dry leaf pile-to rub them all over myself, without words and clothes. — Dave Eggers

Some of the bank people were so young they'd never seen a business proposal suggesting manufacturing things in the state of Massachusetts. They thought they'd unearthed some ancient shaman, full of clues to a forgotten world. — Dave Eggers

I'm an amateur science enthusiast. I'm not even a professional enthusiast. I don't know anything; I never even passed biology in high school. But I read the science section of the newspaper. — Dave Eggers

Who were these people, all of them young couples, a few fabulous ones, tall thin-haired blondes with toned men in perfectly pressed jeans
neither fearing the loss of the other. — Dave Eggers

-she'd never thought of him while in the tub or flat on her bed- but in his presence she didn't want to talk or eat, she wanted to be nude with him, under a dirty sheet in a borrowed house. She wanted to hold his shoulders; she wanted to go snowshoeing with him; she wanted to go to funerals with him; she wanted him to be the father of her children — Dave Eggers

Memory, perhaps, should have no physical shape. — Dave Eggers

People say I talk slowly. I talk in a way sometimes called laconic. The phone rings, I answer, and people ask if they've woken me up. I lose my way in the middle of sentences, leaving people hanging for minutes. I have no control over it. I'll be talking, and will be interested in what I'm saying, but then someone - I'm convinced this what happens - someone - and I wish I knew who, because I would have words for this person - for a short time, borrows my head. Like a battery is borrowed from a calculator to power a remote control, someone, always, is borrowing my head. — Dave Eggers

I know forever they will be in my house, the rooms of my mind, I know this and I have accepted this but while I know they will be there I want them dead there. I cannot have them breathing there! I want them in the floirboards of the basement of my soul. — Dave Eggers

To be described is to be seduced. Shit. One turn of phrase. One thing noticed that she'd never noticed. It works always. — Dave Eggers

You might not be able to operate your own Learjet and have an unlimited expense account, but if you have a reasonable expectation for a print-based product, whether it's a newspaper or a magazine, you can certainly exist. — Dave Eggers

Eliminate lobbyists. Eliminate polls. It might even eliminate Congress. If we can know the will of the people at any time, without filter, without misinterpretation or bastardization, wouldn't it eliminate much of Washington? — Dave Eggers

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. — Dave Eggers

I went to Saudi Arabia in 2010, and spent most of my time in Jeddah and the King Abdullah Economic City. — Dave Eggers

Who says we don't want to be inspired? We fucking want to be inspired! What the fuck is wrong with us wanting to be inspired? Everyone acts like it's some crazy idea, some outrageous ungrantable request. Don't we deserve grand human projects that give us meaning? — Dave Eggers

My plans are a jumble for now, but I do know certain things that I will and will not do. [ ... ] I will reach upward. I will attempt to do better. I will not be a burden upon those who have helped me too much already. I will always be grateful for what pleasure I have enjoyed, what joys I have yet to experience. I will take opportunities as they come, but at the same time, I will not trust so easily. I will look at who is at the door before opening it. I will try to be fierce. I will argue when necessary. I will be willing to fight. I will not smile reflexively at every person I see. I will live as a good child of God, and will forgive him each time he claims another of the people I love. I will forgive and attempt to understand his plans for me, and I will not pity myself. — Dave Eggers

[M]y mother read a horror novel every night. She had read every one in the library. When birthdays and Christmas would come, I would consider buying her a new one, the latest Dean R. Koontz or Stephen King or whatever, but I couldn't. I didn't want to encourage her. I couldn't touch my father's cigarettes, couldn't look at the Pall Mall cartons in the pantry. I was the sort of child who couldn't even watch commercials for horror movies - the ad for Magic, the movie where marionette kills people. sent me into a six-month nightmare frenzy. So I couldn't look at her books, would turn them over so their covers wouldn't show, the raised lettering and splotches of blood - especially the V.C. Andrews oeuvre, those turgid pictures of those terrible kids, standing so still, all lit in blue. — Dave Eggers

I always like the idea of doing interviews with somebody but completely seriously not ever mentioning what that person is generally known for. — Dave Eggers

What had been intriguing on Monday and Tuesday was approaching annoying by Wednesday and exasperating by Thursday. — Dave Eggers

The raising of a child is the building of a cathedral. You can't cut corners. — Dave Eggers

A combination of acting, lying, begging, and cheating. — Dave Eggers

When I was very young I couldn't watch anything black and white on TV because I knew the people moving were now dust. — Dave Eggers

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. — Dave Eggers

It was like setting up a guillotine in the public square.You don't expect a thousand people to line up to put their heads in it. — Dave Eggers

But you know, there's something about the kids finishing their homework in a given day, working one-on-one, getting all this attention - they go home, they're finished. They don't stall, they don't do their homework in front of the TV. — Dave Eggers

If things continue this way, there will be two societies - or at least I hope there will be two - the one you're helping create, and an alternative to it. You and your ilk will live, willingly, joyfully, under constant surveillance, watching each other always, commenting on each other, voting and liking and disliking each other, smiling and frowning, and otherwise doing nothing much else. — Dave Eggers

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

People don't like to be kept away from what they want. Especially when it appears within their reach. It makes one doubly angry. — Dave Eggers

I am too fucking fragile. I hate being fragile. — Dave Eggers

Every time someone started shouting about the supposed monopoly of the Circle, or the Circle's unfair monetization of the personal data of its users, or some other paranoid and demonstrably false claim, soon enough it was revealed that that person was a criminal or deviant of the highest order. — Dave Eggers

We've lost that very simple transaction that's so pure, where a reader can say, "I support what you're doing, here's my dollar. I know that you guys are gonna be watchdogs or keep the government accountable, so here's my 50-cent contribution each day." It's just so tidy, and I think so inspiring. — Dave Eggers

We have no choice. We need the communion of souls and only here are they awake. — Dave Eggers