Quotessence
Home / Authors / Jonathan Safran Foer
Jonathan Safran Foer

Jonathan Safran Foer Quotes

Writer

Filter quotes by topic

AllIfsPeopleThinkingWayKnowsWorldAnimalWantMadeWriting

Famous Jonathan Safran Foer Quotes

“The way that I feel about my Jewish identity has been really radically changed by events in life. Like, becoming a writer is one. Having children is another. And getting older and watching, you know, my parents and grandparents get older has been another, the seasons of - being witness to the seasons of life and wanting to have some kind of infrastructure to deal with it, to cope with them. Ritual has become more important to me as I've gotten older. It's not always religious ritual, but it often borrows from Judaism.”

KindChildrenImportantParentReligiousIdentityChangedWitnessRitualGrandparentJudaismGetting OldGetting OlderHaving Children
Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
Create image

“There's a really wonderful book called "Man Is Not Alone" by Abraham Joshua Heschel, which makes the case that everybody is religious. You know, we've just been sort of too vigilant about our terminology and our definitions and too precious about it. But there's nobody who is indifferent to the experience of standing in front of an ocean at night. There's nobody who is indifferent to the feeling of, you know, lying on your back and looking up at the night sky.”

MenBookFeelingsLyingNightReligiousWonderfulOceanIndifferentNot AloneNight Sky
Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
Create image

“Life is precious, so I ought to spend my days, you know, making sandwiches for homeless people and tending to the elderly in hospice care. Life is precious, so I should give everything away, except that I live in the world. And in the world, I actually have needs and wants, and I value my needs and wants. And I live in the world, and I can't just go make sandwiches every day because I also have to take kids to school. I also have to, you know, write books because that's my livelihood.”

PeopleWorldGivingWritingBookCareKidsSchoolValuesHomelessHomeless PeopleLife Is Precious
Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
Create image

“This is the sixty-nine," I told him, presenting the magazine in front of him. I put my fingers -- two of them -- on the action, so that he would not overlook it. "Why is it dubbed sixty-nine?" he asked, because he is a person hot on fire with curiosity. "It was invented in 1969. My friend Gregory knows a friend of the nephew of the inventor." "What did people do before 1969?" "Merely blowjobs and masticating box, but never in chorus.”

PeopleKnowsPersonsTwoActionFireFrontsMy FriendsHotFingersCuriosityBoxesNineMagazinesSixtyInventorPresentingChorusNephew
Book:Everything Is Illuminated
Create image

“I started inventing things, and then I couldn't stop, like beavers, which I know about. People think they cut down trees so they can build dams, but in reality it's because their teeth never stop growing, and if they didn't constantly file them down by cutting through all of those trees, their teeth would start to grow into their own faces, which would kill them. That's how my brain was.”

PeopleIfsThinkingKnowsRealityFacesGrowsBrainCuttingGrowingTreeTeethFilesInventingDamsBeaversInventing Things
Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
Create image

“If there is no love in the world, we will make a new world, and we will give it walls, and we will furnish it with soft red interiors, from the inside out, and give it a knocker that resonates like a diamond falling to a jeweller's felt so that we should never hear it. Love me, because love doesn't exist, and I have tried everything that does.”

IfsWorldLoveGivingShouldDoeFallFeltWallRedNew WorldDiamondInteriorsNo LoveEverything Is IlluminatedKnockers
Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
Create image

“You can see the most beautiful things from the observation deck of the Empire State Building. I read somewhere that people on the street are supposed to look like ants, but that's not true. They look like little people. And the cars look like little cars. And even the buildings look little. It's like New York is a miniature replica of New York, which is nice, because you can see what it's really like, instead of how it feels when you're in the middle of it.”

PeopleFeelsLooksLittlesStatesBeautifulNiceStreetsMiddleCarNew YorkBuildingObservationEmpiresBeautiful ThingsAntsDeckMiniaturesReplicaEmpire State BuildingEmpire State
Book:Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel
Create image

“The disgraced Usurer Yankel D took the baby girl home that evening... He made a bed of crumpled newspaper in a deep baking pan and gently tucked it in the oven, so that she wouldn't be disturbed by the noise of the small falls outside... When he pulled her out to feed her or just hold her, her body was tattooed with the newsprint... Sometimes he would rock her to sleep in his arms, and read her left to right, and know everything he needed to know about the world. If it wasn't written on her, it wasn't important to him.”

IfsKnowsWorldMadeImportantSometimesHomeBodyFallGirlLeftSleepWrittenRocksBabyArmsNeededBedNewspapersNoiseEveningDisturbedBakingOvensBaby GirlTattooed
Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
Create image

“I felt, that night, on that stage, under that skull, incredibly close to everything in the universe, but also extremely alone. I wondered, for the first time in my life, if life was worth all the work it took to live. What exactly made it worth it? What's so horrible about being dead forever, and not feeling anything, and not even dreaming? What's so great about feeling and dreaming?”

IfsFirstsMadeFeelingsDreamNightUniverseFeltForeverStageFirst TimeHorribleMade ItLoudWorking ItWorth ItSkulls
Book:Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel
Create image

“[Grandfather] would manufacture funnies with Grandmother before she died about how he was in love with other women who were not her. She knew it was only funnies because she would laugh in volumes. 'Anna,' he would say, 'I am going to marry that one with the pink hat.' And she would say, 'To whom are you going to marry her?' And he would say, 'To me.' I would laugh very much in the back seat, and she would say to him, 'But you are no priest.' And he would say, 'I am today.' And she would say, 'Today you believe in God?' And he would say, 'Today I believe in love.”

BelieveTodayI BelieveLaughingDiedI Believe InSeatsHatsGrandmotherPriestsBelieve In GodGrandfatherVolumeAnnaBelieve In LoveI Believe In Love
Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
Create image

“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?”

ThinkingWantWritingHas BeensArtMadeEndsReasonWholePurposeSuccessfulProductsArt IsSellsPaintFoolishWorks Of Art
Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
Create image