Top 25 Joanna Rakoff Quotes (2024 Update)

Joanna Rakoff Quote: “He surrounded himself with fools – the broken, the failed or failing, the sad and confused – so that he might be their king. Which, obviously made him nothing but the king of fools.”

1. “He surrounded himself with fools – the broken, the failed or failing, the sad and confused – so that he might be their king. Which, obviously made him nothing but the king of fools.”

— Joanna Rakoff

Joanna Rakoff Quote: “Salinger had once sat at his desk, trying to figure out what made a story, how to structure a novel, how to be a writer, how to be.”

2. “Salinger had once sat at his desk, trying to figure out what made a story, how to structure a novel, how to be a writer, how to be.”

— Joanna Rakoff

Joanna Rakoff Quote: “I know, I said reflexively, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to be normal. I wanted to be extraordinary. I wanted to write novels and make films and speak ten languages and travel around the world.”

3. “I know, I said reflexively, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to be normal. I wanted to be extraordinary. I wanted to write novels and make films and speak ten languages and travel around the world.”

— Joanna Rakoff

Joanna Rakoff Quote: “In literature, as in life, sometimes there are no right answers.”

4. “In literature, as in life, sometimes there are no right answers.”

— Joanna Rakoff

Joanna Rakoff Quote: “So we’re all doing a pretty good job not revealing our emotions, right? But if you can’t reveal your emotions, how do you go on? What do you do with them? Because, you see, I keep crying at odd moments.”

5. “So we’re all doing a pretty good job not revealing our emotions, right? But if you can’t reveal your emotions, how do you go on? What do you do with them? Because, you see, I keep crying at odd moments.”

— Joanna Rakoff

Joanna Rakoff Quote: “To read Salinger is to engage in an act of such intimacy that it, at times, makes you uncomfortable. In Salinger, characters don’t sit around contemplating suicide. They pick up guns and shoot themselves in the head. All through that weekend, even as I ripped through his entire oeuvre, I kept having to put the books down and breathe. He shows us his characters at their most bald, bares their most private thoughts, most telling actions. It’s almost too much. Almost.”

6. “To read Salinger is to engage in an act of such intimacy that it, at times, makes you uncomfortable. In Salinger, characters don’t sit around contemplating suicide. They pick up guns and shoot themselves in the head. All through that weekend, even as I ripped through his entire oeuvre, I kept having to put the books down and breathe. He shows us his characters at their most bald, bares their most private thoughts, most telling actions. It’s almost too much. Almost.”

— Joanna Rakoff

Joanna Rakoff Quote: “What terrified her was the set of circumstances that allowed her to eat a full pound of spaghetti, the unmoored, untethered quality of her life, in which no one – no mother, sister, roommate, professor, boyfriend, anyone – was there to monitor her habits and behaviors, to say, “Haven’t you had enough?” or “Can I share that with you?” or “Let’s have dinner together tonight” or even “What are you doing for dinner?” She woke up, went to work, came home, alone.”

7. “What terrified her was the set of circumstances that allowed her to eat a full pound of spaghetti, the unmoored, untethered quality of her life, in which no one – no mother, sister, roommate, professor, boyfriend, anyone – was there to monitor her habits and behaviors, to say, “Haven’t you had enough?” or “Can I share that with you?” or “Let’s have dinner together tonight” or even “What are you doing for dinner?” She woke up, went to work, came home, alone.”

— Joanna Rakoff

Joanna Rakoff Quote: “She’d never spent entire days lying on her bed reading, entire nights making up complicated stories in her head. She’d not dreamed of willing herself into Anne of Green Gables and Jane Eyre so that she might have real friends, friends who understood her thorny desires and dreams. How could she spend her days – her life – ushering books into publication but not love them in the way that I did, the way that they needed to be loved?”

8. “She’d never spent entire days lying on her bed reading, entire nights making up complicated stories in her head. She’d not dreamed of willing herself into Anne of Green Gables and Jane Eyre so that she might have real friends, friends who understood her thorny desires and dreams. How could she spend her days – her life – ushering books into publication but not love them in the way that I did, the way that they needed to be loved?”

— Joanna Rakoff

Joanna Rakoff Quote: “I love Flaubert. I just finished Sentimental Education and I was amazed by how contemporary it seemed. But I also love writers like Alison Lurie and Mary Gaitskill. And I grew up reading mysteries. I love Donald Westlake and Dashiell Hammett.”

9. “I love Flaubert. I just finished Sentimental Education and I was amazed by how contemporary it seemed. But I also love writers like Alison Lurie and Mary Gaitskill. And I grew up reading mysteries. I love Donald Westlake and Dashiell Hammett.”

— Joanna Rakoff

Joanna Rakoff Quote: “I suppose,” she said with a shrug. She was, I suddenly realized, an unlikely leader, a reluctant president. She disliked being at the center of attention, having us all at her beck and call. This was why she came and went with barely a word to me. Not out of hauteur. She was shy, quiet, retiring. “We’re going for drinks tonight. All of us.”

10. “I suppose,” she said with a shrug. She was, I suddenly realized, an unlikely leader, a reluctant president. She disliked being at the center of attention, having us all at her beck and call. This was why she came and went with barely a word to me. Not out of hauteur. She was shy, quiet, retiring. “We’re going for drinks tonight. All of us.”

— Joanna Rakoff

Joanna Rakoff Quote: “De Daumier-Smith’s Blue Period.” The narrator of the story, a teacher at a correspondence-based art school, writes a letter to his one talented pupil, urging her to invest in good oils and brushes, to commit to the life of the artist. “The worst that being an artist could do to you would be that it would make you slightly unhappy constantly.”

11. “De Daumier-Smith’s Blue Period.” The narrator of the story, a teacher at a correspondence-based art school, writes a letter to his one talented pupil, urging her to invest in good oils and brushes, to commit to the life of the artist. “The worst that being an artist could do to you would be that it would make you slightly unhappy constantly.”

— Joanna Rakoff

Joanna Rakoff Quote: “Apparently, Texas was so enormously powerful – so large, with so many schools and students, so much money – that it could demand a textbook tailored specifically to its needs, with a whole chapter on the Alamo, and another on the history of the state, and – most distressingly – the chapter on the civil rights movement omitted entirely.”

12. “Apparently, Texas was so enormously powerful – so large, with so many schools and students, so much money – that it could demand a textbook tailored specifically to its needs, with a whole chapter on the Alamo, and another on the history of the state, and – most distressingly – the chapter on the civil rights movement omitted entirely.”

— Joanna Rakoff

Joanna Rakoff Quote: “Poetry, for Salinger, represented communion with God.”

13. “Poetry, for Salinger, represented communion with God.”

— Joanna Rakoff

Joanna Rakoff Quote: “Don’s European friends occasionally came up in conversation, but they’d yet to materialize in real life.”

14. “Don’s European friends occasionally came up in conversation, but they’d yet to materialize in real life.”

— Joanna Rakoff

Joanna Rakoff Quote: “Why couldn’t Caitlin confide in Vix? Because she knew Vix would judge her. Because she knew Vix would refuse to understand. Because it was easier simply to pretend everything was all right.”

15. “Why couldn’t Caitlin confide in Vix? Because she knew Vix would judge her. Because she knew Vix would refuse to understand. Because it was easier simply to pretend everything was all right.”

— Joanna Rakoff

Joanna Rakoff Quote: “I didn’t write to YOU. I wrote to J. D. Salinger. Probably you’re just jealous that you’re not young anymore, so you feel like you have to punish kids like me. Or you’re jealous of Salinger because he’s famous and you’re just some person.” There was a sort of beautiful truth to her note. I was, indeed, just some person. Some person who was now beginning to understand why Hugh had handed me that form letter. To save me from myself.”

16. “I didn’t write to YOU. I wrote to J. D. Salinger. Probably you’re just jealous that you’re not young anymore, so you feel like you have to punish kids like me. Or you’re jealous of Salinger because he’s famous and you’re just some person.” There was a sort of beautiful truth to her note. I was, indeed, just some person. Some person who was now beginning to understand why Hugh had handed me that form letter. To save me from myself.”

— Joanna Rakoff

Joanna Rakoff Quote: “Salinger equated poetry with spirituality. Poetry, for Salinger, represented communion with God.”

17. “Salinger equated poetry with spirituality. Poetry, for Salinger, represented communion with God.”

— Joanna Rakoff

Joanna Rakoff Quote: “She needed this wedding – this perfect, minutely orchestrated wedding – to shout, This is who I am. To tell us all that she was not that girl who’d tried to kill herself freshman year, the girl who developed an unhealthy obsession with her poetry professor junior year, the girl who had baffled psychiatrists and mystified her parents, for she had once been so perfect, so good, so obedient.”

18. “She needed this wedding – this perfect, minutely orchestrated wedding – to shout, This is who I am. To tell us all that she was not that girl who’d tried to kill herself freshman year, the girl who developed an unhealthy obsession with her poetry professor junior year, the girl who had baffled psychiatrists and mystified her parents, for she had once been so perfect, so good, so obedient.”

— Joanna Rakoff

Joanna Rakoff Quote: “All right,” he said. “Don’t get stuck answering phones. You’ll never get out. You’re a poet.”

19. “All right,” he said. “Don’t get stuck answering phones. You’ll never get out. You’re a poet.”

— Joanna Rakoff

Joanna Rakoff Quote: “Now I was interested in difficult, gritty fictions, in large, expansive novels, in social realism. I was interested in Pynchon, Amis, Dos Passos. I was interested in Faulkner and Didion and Bowles, writers whose bleak, relentless styles stood in stark opposition to what I imagined.”

20. “Now I was interested in difficult, gritty fictions, in large, expansive novels, in social realism. I was interested in Pynchon, Amis, Dos Passos. I was interested in Faulkner and Didion and Bowles, writers whose bleak, relentless styles stood in stark opposition to what I imagined.”

— Joanna Rakoff

Joanna Rakoff Quote: “Typing was, as the placement agency lady had assured me, like riding a bike: my fingers remembered their places on the keyboard and flew across it as if by their own will.”

21. “Typing was, as the placement agency lady had assured me, like riding a bike: my fingers remembered their places on the keyboard and flew across it as if by their own will.”

— Joanna Rakoff

Joanna Rakoff Quote: “Nor did I write again to the high school girl. Her rage was too enormous for me to bear. And what could I say to her but Wait, wait, and you’ll see. It gets easier once you’re no longer graded, once you have to assess your actions for yourself.”

22. “Nor did I write again to the high school girl. Her rage was too enormous for me to bear. And what could I say to her but Wait, wait, and you’ll see. It gets easier once you’re no longer graded, once you have to assess your actions for yourself.”

— Joanna Rakoff

Joanna Rakoff Quote: “This is not a story about Christianity. Franny’s adoption of the Jesus Prayer has less to do with Jesus than with her desire to transcend her own troublesome ego, to stop the superficial thoughts and desires that plague her. To somehow find a way to live in a world that sickens her. To be her authentic self. To not be the person the world is telling her to be, the girl who must bury her intelligence in her letters to Lane, who must compromise herself in order to live.”

23. “This is not a story about Christianity. Franny’s adoption of the Jesus Prayer has less to do with Jesus than with her desire to transcend her own troublesome ego, to stop the superficial thoughts and desires that plague her. To somehow find a way to live in a world that sickens her. To be her authentic self. To not be the person the world is telling her to be, the girl who must bury her intelligence in her letters to Lane, who must compromise herself in order to live.”

— Joanna Rakoff

Joanna Rakoff Quote: “JOANNE!” he cried. Somehow, he had figured out my name, or an approximation of it. I wondered, for a moment, if Roger had corrected him. Or Pam. “How’s the poetry?” I flushed. “Good,” I said. “Good.” “You’re writing every day?” he asked, lowering his voice. I flushed again. Suddenly I understood Roger’s nervousness. It was strange to feel the force of a famous person’s attention. “First thing in the morning.” “I am.” This was mostly true. “That’s what you do,” he said.”

24. “JOANNE!” he cried. Somehow, he had figured out my name, or an approximation of it. I wondered, for a moment, if Roger had corrected him. Or Pam. “How’s the poetry?” I flushed. “Good,” I said. “Good.” “You’re writing every day?” he asked, lowering his voice. I flushed again. Suddenly I understood Roger’s nervousness. It was strange to feel the force of a famous person’s attention. “First thing in the morning.” “I am.” This was mostly true. “That’s what you do,” he said.”

— Joanna Rakoff

Joanna Rakoff Quote: “Alone in her anxieties and insecurities, alone in the tyranny of her mind, but also simply, literally, physically alone, her only companion an oversized, paraplegic cat who dragged himself around the apartment like a mythological creature, his front half leonine and furry, his hindquarters shaved bald, for he no longer had the flexibility to groom them.”

25. “Alone in her anxieties and insecurities, alone in the tyranny of her mind, but also simply, literally, physically alone, her only companion an oversized, paraplegic cat who dragged himself around the apartment like a mythological creature, his front half leonine and furry, his hindquarters shaved bald, for he no longer had the flexibility to groom them.”

— Joanna Rakoff

Joanna Rakoff Quote: “He had no idea how much I knew and was afraid of destroying this deal before it had even gotten off the ground. He was also just afraid. Afraid in the way most people become when they get what they’ve long wanted.”

26. “He had no idea how much I knew and was afraid of destroying this deal before it had even gotten off the ground. He was also just afraid. Afraid in the way most people become when they get what they’ve long wanted.”

— Joanna Rakoff

Joanna Rakoff Quote: “I’d known, of course, that a blizzard was coming, or I suppose I’d known, for I didn’t own a television or a radio, and I didn’t traffic in circles where people talked excessively about the weather – we had larger, more important things to discuss; weather was something over which our grandmothers, our dull neighbors in the suburbs, obsessed.”

27. “I’d known, of course, that a blizzard was coming, or I suppose I’d known, for I didn’t own a television or a radio, and I didn’t traffic in circles where people talked excessively about the weather – we had larger, more important things to discuss; weather was something over which our grandmothers, our dull neighbors in the suburbs, obsessed.”

— Joanna Rakoff

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