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Jonathan Safran Foer Quotes - Page 6

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We live in a world made up more of story than stuff. We are creatures of memory more than reminders, of love more than likes.

We live in a world made up more of story than stuff. We are creatures of memory more than reminders, of love more than likes.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Memories, World, Stuff

...there are only some many times you can utter "It does not hurt" before it begins to hurt even more than the hurt.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Hurt, Doe

It's true, I am afraid of dying. I am afraid of the world moving forward without me, of my absence going unnoticed, or worse, being some natural force propelling life on. Is it selfish? Am I such a bad person for dreaming of a world that ends when I do? I don't mean the world ending with respect to me, but every set of eyes closing with mine.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Death, Dream, Selfish

I imagine a line, a white line, painted on the sand and on the ocean, from me to you.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Long Distance Relationship, Ocean, White
Jonathan Safran Foer (2003). “Everything is Illuminated”, p.224, Penguin UK

I like to see people reunited, I like to see people run to each other, I like the kissing and the crying, I like the impatience, the stories that the mouth can't tell fast enough, the ears that aren't big enough, the eyes that can't take in all of the change, I like the hugging, the bringing together, the end of missing someone.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Running, Missing Someone, Eye
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel”, p.109, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I tried the key in all the doors, even though he said he didn't recognize it. It's not that I didn't trust him, becuase I did. It's that at the end of my search I wanted to be able to say: I don't know how I could have tried harder.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Keys, Doors, Able
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel”, p.160, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

We were trying to make our lives easier, trying, with all our rules, to make life effortless. But a friction began to arise between Nothing and Something, in the morning the Nothing vase cast a Something shadow, like the memory of someone you've lost, what can you say about that, at night the Nothing light spilled from the guest room spilled under the Nothing door and stained the Something hallway, there's nothing to say.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Morning, Memories, Night
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel”, p.110, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I never confused what I had with what I was.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Confused
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel”, p.174, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I'm sorry for my inability to let unimportant things go, for my inability to hold on to the important things.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Sorry, Unimportant Things, Inability
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel”, p.132, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I can forgive you for leaving, but not for coming back.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Leaving, Forgiving, Coming Back

She let out a laugh, and then she put her hand over her mouth, like she was angry at herself for forgetting her sadness.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Sadness, Hands, Laughing

Being with him made my brain quiet. I didn't have to invent a thing.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Brain, Quiet, Made
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel”, p.12, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Flea-Market vendors are frozen mid-haggle. Middle-aged women are frozen in the middle of their lives. The gavels of frozen judges are frozen between guilt and innocence. On the ground are the crystals of the frozen first breaths of babies, and those of the last gasps of the dying.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Baby, Judging, Guilt

Highs and lows make you feel that things matter, but they're nothing." "So what's something?" "Being reliable is something. Being good.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Matter, Lows, Be Good
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel”, p.297, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

We live in a world made up more of story than stuff. We are creatures of memory more than reminders, of love more than likes. Being attentive to the needs of others might not be the point of life, but it is the work of life. It can be messy, and painful, and almost impossibly difficult. But it is not something we give. It is what we get in exchange for having to die.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Memories, Giving, Might

So she had to satisfy herself with the idea of love - loving the loving of things whose existence she didn't care at all about. Love itself became the object of her love. She loved herself in love, she loved loving love, as love loves loving, and was able, in that way, to reconcile herself with a world that fell so short of what she would have hoped for. It was not the world that was the great and saving lie, but her willingness to make it beautiful and fair, to live a once-removed life, in a world once-removed from the one in which everyone else seemed to exist.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Love, Beautiful, Lying

I dreamt four nights ago of clock hands descending from the universe like rain, of the moon as a green eye, of mirrors and insects, of a love that never withdrew. It was not the feeling of completeness that I so needed, but the feeling of not being empty.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Rain, Eye, Moon
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Everything Is Illuminated”, p.37, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Is that growing old? Or is it something worse?

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

What? she said once to herself, and then once aloud, What? She felt a total displacement, like a spinning globe brought to a sudden halt by the light touch of a finger. How did she end up here, like this? How could there have been so much - so many moments, so many people and things, so many razors and pillows, timepieces and subtle coffins - without her being aware? How did her life live itself without her?

Jonathan Safran Foer
Light, People, Coffins
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Everything Is Illuminated”, p.132, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

It has shown me that everything is illuminated in the light of the past. It is always along the side of us...on the inside, looking out.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Past, Light, Sides
"Everything Is Illuminated". www.imdb.com. 2005.

One of the greatest opportunities to live our values-or betray them-lies in the food we put on our plates.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Lying, Opportunity, Plates
Jonathan Safran Foer (2010). “Eating Animals”, p.212, Penguin UK

Sometimes people who seem good end up being not as good as you might have hoped, you know?

Jonathan Safran Foer
People, Might, Sometimes
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel”, p.6, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

You are the only one who has understood even a whisper of me, and I will tell you that I am the only person who has understood even a whisper of you.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Understood, Persons
Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Everything Is Illuminated”, p.218, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Writers now are putting total faith in designers at Apple and Amazon. It's almost like a race-car driver having no input into how cars are designed.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Race, Apples, Car

When I looked at you, my life made sense. Even the bad things made sense. They were necessary to make you possible.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Made, Bad Things

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