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Jonathan Safran Foer

Jonathan Safran Foer Quotes

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Famous Jonathan Safran Foer Quotes

“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
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“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.”

PeopleEndsEnoughStoriesBigsEyeRunningTogetherMissingCryKissingMouthsEarsHugImpatienceMissing SomeoneReunited
Book:Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel
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“And so it was when anyone tried to speak: their minds would become tangled in remembrance. Words became floods of thought with no beginning or end, and would drown the speaker before he could reach the life raft of the point he was trying to make. It was impossible to remember what one meant, what, after all of the words, was intended.”

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Book:Everything Is Illuminated
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“(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.)”

PeopleIfsFeelsTryingBelieveSaidEndsStupidFoolGoodnessShameAshamedDeservingNo LoveClosenessGod ExistsBelieve In Love
Book:Everything Is Illuminated
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“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.”

WorldMeanPersonsEndsDreamEyeMovingDeathForceNaturalDyingMinesAbsenceSelfishMoving ForwardEnd Of The WorldClosingUnnoticed
Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
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“She spent an afternoon staring at their front door. Waiting for someone? Yankel asked. What color is this? He stood very close to the door, letting the end of his nose touch the peephole. He licked the wood and joked, It certainly tastes like red. Yes, it is red, isn't it? Seems so. She buried her head in her hands. But couldn't it be just a bit more red?”

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Book:Everything Is Illuminated
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“Think of the beginning of the story of the beginning of everything: Adam (without Eve and without divine guidance) names the animals. Continuing his work, we call stupid people bird-brained, cowardly people chickens, fools turkeys. Are these the best names we have to offer? If we can revise the notion of women coming from a rib, can’t we revise our categorizations of the animals that, draped with barbecue sauce, end up as the ribs on our dinner plates — or for that matter, the KFC in our hands?”

PeopleIfsThinkingEndsMatterStoriesHandsNamesAnimalStupidDivineFoolOffersBirdNotionDinnerGuidanceChickensAdamPlatesContinuingTurkeysStupid PeopleSauceCowardlyRibsBarbecueCategorizationDivine GuidanceKfcBarbecue SauceDinner Plates
Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
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“But when, at the end of my sophomore year, I became a philosophy major and started doing my first seriously pretentious thinking, I became a vegetarian again. The kind of willful forgetting that I was sure meat eating required felt too paradoxical to the intellectual life I was trying to shape. I thought life could, should, and must conform to the mold of reason. You can imagine how annoying this made me.”

ThinkingShouldTryingYearsFirstsKindMadeEndsReasonPhilosophyFeltForgetImagineShapesEatingMajorsIntellectualMeatVegetarianAnnoyingConformMoldPretentiousThoughts On LifeParadoxicalSophomoreIntellectual LifeMeat EatingSophomore Year
Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
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“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?”

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Book:Everything Is Illuminated
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“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.”

IfsWantWritingTryingHeartEndsRememberJoyLostMinesMy HeartNewsThe End Of The DaySuitcasesAnd At The End Of The DayOld News
Book:Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel
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“This isn't animal experimentation, where you an imagine some proportionate good at the other end of the suffering. This is what we feel like eating. Tell me something: Why is taste, the crudest of our sense, exempted from the ethical rules that govern our other sense? If you stop and think about it, it's crazy. Why doesn't a horny person has as strong a claim to raping an animal as a hungry one does to killing and eating it?”

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Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
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