That American confidence is more alive and well than it should be, to this day. But it's such a problem. There's a blindness to that confidence, a presumption that what's good for me is good for you. No! That's what teenagers think: the world revolves around them. As a nation, we've got to stop thinking that way. We're getting too old for that.
Tags: you, confidence, me, good

Other Quotes by "Jennifer Egan"

To some degree, we're all thinking about the same things. It's the zeitgeist. The trick, in a way, as a writer, is to hope that your interests in some sense link up with the culture around you.
Tags: thinking, culture, you, hope
I find myself thinking more about the past as I get older... maybe because there's just more of it to think about. At the same time, I'm less haunted by it than I was as a younger person. I guess that's probably the ideal: to reach a point where you have access to all of your memories, but you don't feel victimized by them.
Tags: time, you, myself, memories
There are a lot of writers who find a groove and spend a career mining that vein. I seem to be exactly the opposite.
Tags: opposite, find, career, who
People define themselves to some degree by the music that they listened to as teens. My mom had Elvis. Me, I had 'The Who' and later punk rock. Kids who came up in the '80s had other songs and bands. It's a way of placing ourselves culturally and temporally.
Tags: way, people, me, music
The sheer sensory experience of San Francisco is unlike anywhere else. Not just the physical beauty, but the textures, the feel, the wind, the ocean. It's a monumental feeling unrivaled by anywhere else. Its a world class, gorgeous city. And the coffee is great.
Tags: experience, coffee, great, beauty
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