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Jonathan Safran Foer Quotes - Page 20

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We've made science experiments of ourselves and our children.

We've made science experiments of ourselves and our children.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Children, Made, Our Children
"Jonathan Safran Foer on 'Eating Animals'". The Washington Post Live Q&As, www.washingtonpost.com. November 19, 2009.

We shouldn't be intimidated by someone else's idea of perfection if it will prevent us from taking steps we actively want to take.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Ideas, Perfection, Want

There are a lot of things that we crave, there are a lot of things that would make us perhaps more fulfilled in a sensory way that we just say no to.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Way, Just Say No, Fulfilled
"Jonathan Safran Foer on the Morality of Vegetarianism". Interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, www.theatlantic.com. December 11, 2009.

But what she was really trying to say was this: I like music better than anything in the world, after you.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Trying, World
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Everything Is Illuminated”, p.174, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Everything is the way it is because everything was the way it was. Sometimes I feel ensnared in this, as if no matter what I do, what will come has already been fixed.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Matter, Way, Sometimes
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Everything Is Illuminated”, p.145, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Kids are a great analogy. You want your kids to grow up, and you don't want your kids to grow up. You want your kids to become independent of you, but it's also a parent's worst nightmare: That they won't need you. It's like the real tragedy of parenting.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Growing Up, Real, Kids
"Jonathan Safran Foer: 'I'm Not So Interested in the Comforting Kind of Religion'". Calvin College's Festival on Faith & Writing in Grand Rapids, Michigan, www.csmonitor.com. April 23, 2012.

(You do not have to be shamed in my closeness. Family are the people who must never make you feel ashamed.) (You are wrong. Family are the people who must make you feel ashamed when you are deserving of shame.) (And you are deserving of shame?) (I am. I am trying to tell you.) 'We were stupid,' he said, 'because we believed in things.' 'Why is this stupid?' 'Because there are not things to believe in.' (Love?) (There is no love. Only the end of love.) (Goodness?) (Do not be a fool.) (God?) (If God exists, He is not to be believed in.)

Jonathan Safran Foer
Stupid, Believe, People
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Everything Is Illuminated”, p.245, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Every widow wakes one morning, perhaps after years of pure and unwavering grieving, to realize she slept a good night's sleep, and will be able to eat breakfast, and doesn't hear her husband's ghost all the time, but only some of the time. Her grief is replaced with a useful sadness. Every parent who loses a child finds a way to laugh again. The timbre begins to fade. The edge dulls. The hurt lessens. Every love is carved from loss. Mine was. Yours is. Your great-great-great-grandchildren's will be. But we learn to live in that love.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Good Night, Hurt, Morning

I wanted to touch him, to tell him that even if everyone left everyone, I would never leave him, he talked and talked, his words fell through him, trying to find the floor to his sadness.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Sadness, Trying, Wanted
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel”, p.280, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I thought about all of the things that everyone ever says to each other, and how everyone is going to die, whether it's in a millisecond, or days, or months, or 76.5 years, if you were just born. Everything that's born has to die, which means our lives are like skyscrapers. The smoke rises at different speeds, but they're all on fire, and we're all trapped.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Mean, Fire, Years
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel”, p.245, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I could tell that Mom was dreaming, but I didn't want to know what she was dreaming about, because I had enough of my own nightmares, and if she had been dreaming something happy, I would have been angry at her for dreaming something happy.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Mom, Dream, Want
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel”, p.107, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

You're incredibly beautiful,' I told her, because she was fat, so I thought it would be an especially nice compliment, and also make her like me again, even though I was sexist.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Beautiful, Nice, Would Be
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel”, p.44, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Only someone who'd never been an animal would put up a sign saying not to feed them.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Animal, Sign Sayings
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel”, p.28, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Your dad didn't die, so I won't be able to explain it to you.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Dad, Able, Your Dad
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel”, p.50, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Even if I don't like what I am, I know what I am. My children like what they are, but they don't know what they are. So tell me which is worse.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Children, My Children, Knows
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel”, p.151, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

As I've grown older, I've grown more convinced there's nothing that shouldn't be talked about. If we think we're protecting each other, we're not.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Thinking, Convinced, Ifs

Only now do I understand the war against boredom, the lost cause of empty hours, of empty days and nights.

Jonathan Safran Foer
War, Night, Boredom

How beautiful is forgetting! What relief it would be for the world to lose some of its contents.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Beautiful, Relief, Would Be

I observe, I write, I try not to remember the life that I didn't want to loose but lost and have to remember, being here fills my heart with so much joy, even if the joy isn't mine, and at the end of the day I fill the suitcase with old news.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Writing, Heart, Joy
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel”, p.109, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

He Wrote, Are you OK? I told him, My eyes are crummy. He wrote, But are you OK? I told him, That's a very complicated question. He wrote, That's a very simple answer. I asked, Are you OK? He wrote, Some mornings I wake up feeling grateful.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Morning, Grateful, Eye
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel”, p.81, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

It shouldn't be the consumer's responsibility to figure out what's cruel and what's kind, what's environmentally destructive and what's sustainable. Cruel and destructive food products should be illegal. We don't need the option of buying children's toys made with lead paint, or aerosols with chlorofluorocarbons, or medicines with unlabeled side effects. And we don't need the option of buying factory-farmed animals.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Children, Responsibility, Animal
"Eating Animals". Book by Jonathan Safran Foer, 2009.

Everything I did, I did because I thought it was the correct thing to do… I am not a hero, it is true… But I am not a bad person, either.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Hero, Things To Do, Persons
Jonathan Safran Foer (2003). “Everything is Illuminated”, p.237, Penguin UK

She avoids mirrors, and lifts a powerful telescope to find herself.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Powerful, Mirrors, Telescopes
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Everything Is Illuminated”, p.87, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I have no need for the past, I thought, like a child. I did not consider that the past might have a need for me.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Children, Past, Might
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel”, p.78, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

"My insides don't match up with my outsides." "Do anyone's inside 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 the outside."

Jonathan Safran Foer
Differences, Personality, Persons
"Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close". Book by Jonathan Safran Foer, April 1, 2005.

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