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Jonathan Safran Foer

Jonathan Safran Foer Quotes

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Famous Jonathan Safran Foer Quotes

“I felt shame for living in a nation of unprecedented prosperity-a nation that spends a smaller percentage of income on food than any other civilization has in human history-but in the name of affordability treats the animals it eats with cruelty so extreme it would be illegal if inflicted on a dog.”

IfsHumansWould BeNamesNationsFeltAnimalDogCivilizationTreatsShameProsperityExtremesIncomeCrueltyIllegalHuman HistoryPercentagesUnprecedentedAffordability
Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
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“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
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“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
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“And the joys I've felt have not always been joyous. I could have lived differently. When I was your age, my grandfather bought me a ruby bracelet. It as too big for me an would slide up and down my arm. It was almost a necklace. He later told me that he had asked the jeweler make that way. Its size was supposed to be a symbol of his love. More rubies, more love. But I could not wear it comfortably. I could not wear it at all. So here is the point of everything I have been trying to say. IF I were to give a bracelet to you, now, I would measure your wrist twice”

IfsWayGivingTryingHas BeensBigsAgeJoyFeltArmsSizeSymbolsSupposed To BeGrandfatherHis LoveUp And DownSlidesMy GrandfatherJoyousWristsRubiesNecklacesBracelet
Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
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“When I was a girl, my life was music that was always getting louder. Everything moved me. A dog following a stranger. That made me feel so much. A calendar that showed the wrong month. I could have cried over it. I did. Where the smoke from a chimney ended. How an overturned bottle rested at the edge of a table. I spent my life learning to feel less. Every day I felt less. Is that growing old? Or is it something worse? You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.”

FeelsMadeGirlFeltGrowingSadnessDogMonthsProtectTablesMovedEdgesFollowingStrangerSmokeOver ItBottlesCriedGrowing OldCalendarsChimneysLife LearningProtect YourselfWhere You Grew Up
Book:Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel
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“Her life was a slow realization that the world was not for her and that for whatever reason she would never be happy and honest at the same time. She felt as if she were brimming always producing and hoarding more love inside her. But there was no release. table ivory elephant charm rainbow onion hairdo violence melodrama honey...None of it moved her. She addressed the world honestly searching for something deserving of the volumes of love she knew she had within her but to each she would have to say I don't love you.”

IfsWorldReasonFeltViolenceHonestLove YouTablesMovedHonestlyReleaseRealizationCharmHoneyRainbowVolumeElephantsDeservingOnionsIvoryHoardingMelodramaHairdosI Don't Love You
Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
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“Suddenly Yankel was overcome with a fear of dying, stronger than he felt when his parents passed of natural causes, stronger than when his only brother was killed in the flour mill or when his children died, stronger even than when he was a child and it first occurred to him that he must try to understand what it could mean not to be alive -- to be not in darkness, not in unfeeling -- to be not being, not to be.”

TryingFirstsMeanChildrenFeltCausesParentNaturalDarknessAliveDyingBrotherOvercomingDiedStrongerMillsFlourUnfeelingFear Of Dying
Book:Everything Is Illuminated
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“A few days after we came home from the hospital, I sent a letter to a friend, including a photo of my son and some first impressions of fatherhood. He responded, simply, 'Everything is possible again.' It was the perfect thing to write, because that was exactly how it felt. We could retell our stories and make them better, more representative or aspirational. Or we could choose to tell different stories. The world itself had another chance.”

WorldWritingFirstsDifferentStoriesHomeFeltChancePerfectSonLettersIncludingImpressionMy SonHospitalsRepresentativesFatherhoodFirst ImpressionAnother ChancePerfect Things
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?”

PeopleHas BeensSaidEndsMomentsLightFeltFingersSubtleGlobesSpinningPillowHaltCoffinsRazorsDisplacementTimepieces
Book:Everything Is Illuminated
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“I would have done anything for him. Maybe that was my sickness. We made love in nothing places and turned the lights off. It felt like crying. We could not look at each other. It always had to be from behind. Like that first time. And I knew he wasn't thinking of me. He squeezed my sides so hard, and pushed so hard. Like he was trying to push me through to somewhere else. Why does anyone ever make love?”

ThinkingTryingFirstsLooksDoeMadeHardDoneLightFeltSidesBehindsCryFirst TimeSicknessMaking LoveSomewhere Else
Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
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