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Jonathan Safran Foer Quotes - Page 17

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ART Art is that thing having to do only with itself—the product of a successful attempt to make a work of art. Unfortunately, there are no expamples of art, nor good reasons to think that it will ever exist. (Everything

ART Art is that thing having to do only with itself—the product of a successful attempt to make a work of art. Unfortunately, there are no expamples of art, nor good reasons to think that it will ever exist. (Everything that has been made has been made with a purpose, teverything with an end exists outside of that thing, i.e., "I want to sell this", or "I want this to make me famous and loved", or "I want this to make me whole", or worse, "I want this to make others whole.") And yet we continue to write, paint, sculpt and compose. Is this foolish of us?

Jonathan Safran Foer
Art, Writing, Successful

We slept in the same bed. There was never a right time to say it. It was always unnecessary. The books in my father's shed were sighing. The sheets were rising and falling around me with Anna's breathing. I thought about waking her. but it was unnecessary. There would be other nights. And how can you say I love you to someone you love? I rolled onto my side and fell asleep next to her. Here is the point of everything I have been trying to tell you... It's always necessary. I love you.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Father, Book, Fall
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel”, p.314, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I zipped myself all the way into the sleeping bag of myself, not because I was hurt, and not because I had broken something, but because they were cracking up.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Hurt, Sleep, Broken
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel”, p.37, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I will describe my eyes and then begin the story. My eyes are blue and resplendent. Now I will begin the story.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Eye, Blue, Stories
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Everything Is Illuminated”, p.4, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Animal agriculture makes a 40% greater contribution to global warming than all transportation in the world combined; it is the number one cause of climate change.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Animal, Numbers, Agriculture
Jonathan Safran Foer (2010). “Eating Animals”, p.41, Penguin UK

What about little microphones? What if everyone swallowed them, and they played the sounds of our hearts through a little speaker. [...] I wonder if everyone's hearts would start to beat at the same time.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Heart, What If, Littles
"Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close". Book by Jonathan Safran Foer, 2005.

What is being awake if not interpreting our dreams, or dreaming if not interpreting our wake?

Jonathan Safran Foer
Dream, Awake, Interpreting
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Everything Is Illuminated”, p.36, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I would have done anything for him. Maybe that was my sickness. We made love in nothing places and turned the lights off. It felt like crying. We could not look at each other. It always had to be from behind. Like that first time. And I knew he wasn't thinking of me. He squeezed my sides so hard, and pushed so hard. Like he was trying to push me through to somewhere else. Why does anyone ever make love?

Jonathan Safran Foer
Thinking, Light, Somewhere Else

But come. No explaining or mending. Be beside me somewhere.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Mending, Explaining
"Here We Aren't, So Quickly" by Jonathan Safran Foer, www.newyorker.com. June 14-21, 2010.

How would you judge an artist who mutilated animals in a gallery because it was visually arresting? How riveting would the sound of a tortured animal need to be to make you want to hear it that badly? Try to imagine any end other than taste for which it would be justifiable to do what we do to farmed animals.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Artist, Animal, Judging
“Flesh of your flesh” by Elizabeth Kolbert, www.newyorker.com. November 9, 2009.

We believed in our grandmother’s cooking more fervently than we believed in God.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Grandma, Grandmother, Cooking
"Eating Animals". Book by Jonathan Safran Foer, March 4, 2010.

When you look up 'hilarious' in the dictionary, there's a picture of you.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Looks, Look Up, Dictionary
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel”, p.5, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I spent my life learning to feel less. Every day I felt less. Is that growing old? Or is it something worse? You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Sadness, Growing, Life Learning
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel”, p.180, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Factory farming, of course, does not cause all the world's problems, but is is remarkable just how many of them intersect there.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Doe, World, Causes

What if I never stop inventing?

Jonathan Safran Foer
What If, Inventing, Ifs
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel”, p.305, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I am not sad, he would repeat to himself over and over, I am not sad. As if he might one day convince himself. Or fool himself. Or convince others -- The only thing worse than being sad is for others to know that you are sad.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Being Sad, One Day, Might
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Everything Is Illuminated”, p.47, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

...because he had been waiting for someone to come back to him, so every time someone knocked on the door, he couldn't stop himself from hoping it might be that person, even though he knew he shouldn't hope.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Doors, Waiting, Might
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel”, p.243, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

From space, astronauts can see people making love as a tiny speck of light. Not light, exactly, but a glow that could be confused for light - a coital radiance that takes generations to pour like honey through the darkness to the astronaut's eyes. In about one and a half centuries - after the lovers who made the glow will have long since been laid permanently on their backs - the metropolitan cities will be seen from space. They will glow all year. Smaller cities will also be seen, but with great difficulty. Towns will be virtually impossible to spot. Individual couples invisible.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Couple, Confused, Eye
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Everything Is Illuminated”, p.95, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

In truth I was manufacturing a brick wall of shits.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Wall, Bricks, Brick Wall
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Everything Is Illuminated”, p.32, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

(What are your ghosts like?) (They are on the insides of the lids of my eyes.) (This is also where my ghosts reside.) (You have ghosts?) (Of course I have ghosts.) (But you are a child.) (I am not a child.) (But you have not known love.) (These are my ghosts, the spaces amid love.)

Jonathan Safran Foer
Children, Eye, Space

I feel too much. That's what's going on.' 'Do you think one can feel too much? Or just feel in the wrong ways?' 'My insides don't match up with my outsides.' 'Do anyone's insides and outsides match up?' 'I don't know. I'm only me.' 'Maybe that's what a person's personality is: the difference between the inside and outside.' 'But it's worse for me.' 'I wonder if everyone thinks it's worse for him.' 'Probably. But it really is worse for me.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Thinking, Differences, Personality
"Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close". Book by Jonathan Safran Foer, 2005.

Humans are the only animal that blushes, laughs, has religion, wages war, and kisses with lips. So in a way, the more you kiss with lips, the more human you are. And the more you wage war.

Jonathan Safran Foer
War, Kissing, Animal
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel”, p.99, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Do you have any coffee?'...'It stunts my growth, and I'm afraid of death.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Coffee, Growth, Afraid Of Death
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel”, p.154, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I desperately wish I had my tambourine with me now, because even after everything I'm still wearing heavy boots, and sometimes it helps to play a good beat

Jonathan Safran Foer
Play, Wish, Boots
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel”, p.2, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

In the past seven years of love-making he had heard the words "I love you" so many times: from the mouths of widows and children, from prostitutes, family friends, travelers, and adulterous wives. Women said "I love you" without his ever speaking. "The more you love someone," he came to think, "the harder it is to tell them." It surprised him that strangers didn't stop each other on the street to say "I love you".

Jonathan Safran Foer
Children, Love You, Past

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