Quotes from Typical American

Gish Jen ·  304 pages

Rating: (1.3K votes)


“A man was the sum of his limits; freedom only made him see how much so.”
― Gish Jen, quote from Typical American


“One left; things shifted in one's absence; one returned to something else. Time frustrated all. There was no sneaking past its rough guard, even to get to one's own yard of intimacies.”
― Gish Jen, quote from Typical American


“Anything is possible. A man is what he makes up his mind to be.”
― Gish Jen, quote from Typical American


“He was like a nation in crisis, looking back, and back and back — its history might be ugly, but its past shone perfect.”
― Gish Jen, quote from Typical American


“Of course he bothers me. He's my husband.”
― Gish Jen, quote from Typical American



About the author

Gish Jen
Born place: in Long Island, New York, The United States
Born date August 12, 1955
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“The feeling that you are stupider than you were is what finally interests you in the really complex subjects of life: in change, in experience, in the ways other people have adjusted to disappointment and narrowed ability. You realize that you are no prodigy, your shoulders relax, and you begin to look around you, seeing local color unrivaled by blue glows of algebra and abstraction.”
― Nicholson Baker, quote from The Mezzanine


“I had stood and stared at the webbing of steel then wished for a hole to climb through. The wires had just unraveled without setting off the klaxon. I remembered thinking with a horrible kind of panic that I had somehow done withcraft, and was convinced I was the blackest kind of evil. Then I realized how ridiculous I was being, and figured it was a coincidental gift from the universe, or something.”
― Penelope Fletcher, quote from Demon Girl


“The only thing that ever really gives us any genuine satisfaction is caring for other people. It doesn't matter how popular we are or anything. The only thing that actually makes life more fulfilling is our love for others... And the results speak for themselves.”
― Nic Sheff, quote from Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines


“I wondered whether mad people would be better off if their memories could be neatened up, or taken off the shelves on which they were stored and replaced with nicer ones, and if they'd be the same person then, or completely different ones, and whether dreams were like a vandal rampaging through a library of memories, tearing out random pages and turning them into paper boats...”
― quote from The FitzOsbornes in Exile


“Sometimes I think I collect souls to make up for the ones I've lost over the course of my life.”
― Tiffany Baker, quote from The Little Giant of Aberdeen County


Interesting books

Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, JR., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
(1.6K)
Dirty
(11.8K)
Dirty
by Megan Hart
The End
(5.2K)
The End
by Mark Tufo
Grace
(7.2K)
Grace
by Richard Paul Evans
The Young Lions
(2.6K)
The Young Lions
by Irwin Shaw
Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
(1.7K)
Grace Abounding to t...
by John Bunyan

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.