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Jonathan Safran Foer Quotes - Page 3

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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.

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

Ironically, the utterly unselective omnivore -- "I'm easy; I'll eat anything" -- can appear more socially sensitive than the individual who tries to eat in a way that is good for society.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Trying, Way, Easy

Everything is the way it is because everything was the way it was

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

...and when is enough proof enough?

Jonathan Safran Foer
Enough, Proof
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Everything Is Illuminated”, p.135, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

For how long could we fail until we surrendered?

Jonathan Safran Foer
Long, Failing
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Everything Is Illuminated”, p.117, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

[She] always knew he was a fiction but believed in him anyway.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Fiction
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Everything Is Illuminated”, p.15, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The question, I've come to think, is not what inspires one to change, but what inspires one to remain changed.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Thinking, Inspire, Changed
"Quitting Meat: A Process Of Change" by Jonathan Safran Foer, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 18, 2010.

We all choose things, and we also all choose against things. I want to be the kind of person who chooses for more than chooses against.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Want, Kind, Persons
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Everything Is Illuminated”, p.241, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Since the world has changed so much, the same values don't lead to the same choices anymore.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Choices, World, Changed

If the thrill of hunting were in the hunt, or even in the marksmanship, a camera would do just as well.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Hunting, Archery, Cameras

Our love was the affliction for which only our love was the cure.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Our Love, Affliction, Cures
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Everything Is Illuminated”, p.41, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

If nothing matters, there's nothing to save.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Matter, Nothing Matters, Eating Animals
"Everything Is Illuminated". Book by Jonathan Safran Foer, April 16, 2002.

You have to do something bad to do something good.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel”, p.324, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Fiction works when it makes a reader feel something strongly.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Fiction, Reader, Feels
“Jonathan Safran Foer” by Jennifer L. Knox, www.newyorker.com. June 14 & 21, 2010.

I want an infinitely blank book and the rest of time.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Book, Want, Blank

Food for her is not food, it is terror, dignity, gratitude, vengeance, joyfulness, humiliation, religion, history, and, of course, love. As if the fruit she always offered us were picked from the destroyed brances of out family tree.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Gratitude, Tree, Fruit
"Eating Animals". Book by Jonathan Safran Foer, www.washingtonpost.com. March 4, 2010.

Perhaps in the back of our minds we already understand, without all the science I've discussed, that something terribly wrong is happening. Our sustenance now comes from misery. We know that if someone offers to show us a film on how our meat is produced, it will be a horror film. We perhaps know more than we care to admit, keeping it down in the dark places of our memory-- disavowed. When we eat factory-farmed meat we live, literally, on tortured flesh. Increasingly, that tortured flesh is becoming our own.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Memories, Dark, Science
"Eating Animals". Book by Jonathan Safran Foer, March 4, 2010.

My life story is the story of everyone I've ever met.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Stories, Mets, Life Story
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel”, p.130, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Humans are the only animals that have children on purpose, keep in touch (or don't), care about birthdays, waste and lose time, brush their teeth, feel nostalgia, scrub stains, have religions and political parties and laws, wear keepsakes, apologize years after an offense, whisper, fear themselves, interpret dreams, hide their genitalia, shave, bury time capsules, and can choose not to eat something for reasons of conscience. The justifications for eating animals and for not eating them are often identical: we are not them.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Dream, Children, Party
"Eating Animals". Book by Jonathan Safran Foer, November 2, 2009.

Needless to say, jamming deformed, drugged, overstressed birds together in a filthy, waste-coated room is not very healthy. Beyond deformities, eye damage, blindness, bacterial infections of bones, slipped vertebrae, paralysis, internal bleeding, anemia, slipped tendons, twisted lower legs and necks, respiratory diseases, and weakened immune systems are frequent and long-standing problems on factory farms.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Eye, Long, Bird
"Eating Animals". Book by Jonathan Safran Foer, March 4, 2010.

If we communicated with something like music, we would never be misunderstood, because there is nothing in music to understand.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Misunderstood, Ifs

I can't count the times that upon telling someone I am vegetarian, he or she responded by pointing out an inconsistency in my lifestyle or trying to find a flaw in an argument I never made. (I have often felt that my vegetarianism matters more to such people than it does to me.)

Jonathan Safran Foer
Vegetarianism, People, Trying
"Eating Animals". Book by Jonathan Safran Foer, books.google.ru. March 4, 2010.

Memory was supposed to fill the time, but it made time a hole to be filled.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Memories, Holes, Made

I love sushi, I love fried chicken, I love steak. But there is a limit to my love.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Sushi, Limits, Steak

Feeding my children is not like feeding myself: it matters more.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Children, Matter, My Children

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