Rebecca was an academic star. Her new book was on the phenomenon of word casings, a term she'd invented for words that no longer had meaning outside quotation marks. English was full of these empty words--"friend" and "real" and "story" and "change"--words that had been shucked of their meanings and reduced to husks. Some, like "identity" and "search" and "cloud, " had clearly been drained of life by their Web usage. With others, the reasons were more complex; how had "American" become an ironic term? How had "democracy" come to be used in an arch, mocking way? . Jennifer Egan
Some Similar Quotes
  1. America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, 'It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.' It is in fact... - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

  2. You’ve changed me forever. And I’ll never forget you. - Kiera Cass

  3. He must love you very much, ' Gavril said once I had my footing. I couldn't look at him. 'What makes you say that?' Gavril sighed. 'I've known Maxon since he was a child. He's never stood up to his father like that. - Kiera Cass

  4. Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream. - Unknown

  5. We cannot have a world where everyone is a victim. "I'm this way because my father made me this way. I'm this way because my husband made me this way." Yes, we are indeed formed by traumas that happen to us. But then you must... - Camille Paglia

More Quotes By Jennifer Egan
  1. It was the hat. He looked sweet in the hat. How could a man in a fuzzy blue hat have used human bones to pave his roads?

  2. Rich children are always blond, Jocelyn goes. It has to do with vitamins.

  3. When the clock stops on a life, all things emanating from it become precious, finite, and cordoned off for preservation. Each aspect of the dead person is removed from the flux of the everyday, which, of course, is where we miss him most. The quarantine...

  4. That's what death is, Danny thought: wanting to talk to someone and not being able to.

  5. So this is it ⎯ what cost me all that time. A man who turned out to be old, a house that turned out to be empty.

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