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Jonathan Safran Foer

Jonathan Safran Foer Quotes

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Famous Jonathan Safran Foer Quotes

“We know it (meat eating) is indisputably the number one cause of global warming. So what does it mean exactly to be an environmentalist on a daily basis if you are not thinking about the number one cause of global warming or one of the top two or three causes of all other environmental problems? Does it mean you are necessarily someone who doesn't care about the environment? Obviously not, but it might mean you have a blind spot for something big.”

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Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
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“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.”

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Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
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“It will never be the case that people won't eat meat. I think it could conceivably be the case one day that people eat very small amounts of it. That it's a special thing, rather than reach for it because it's cheap or reach for it because it's convenient, that it becomes something festive or something celebratory, once a week, and that could actually be achieved on small farms if we really changed our habits.”

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“There are more obese people in the world than starving people. As China and India start to develop our eating habits - and not by accident but because agribusiness is going over there and imposing our habits on them - if the population doesn't increase at all, we'll have to raise twice as many animals as we do.”

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Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
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“My impression is that staying together as a couple does not correspond to the challenges themselves, but whether the very idea of breaking up is an option on the table. If it is, then some people take it. If it's not, then they will keep working at it. You must know people who were terribly suited who make it work. And there are couples who seem perfectly suited that break up. It's a mystery to everyone.”

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Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
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“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
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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.”

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Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
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“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
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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”

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Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
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“I knew that our time together was almost over, I asked her if she liked sports, she asked me if I liked chess, I asked her if she liked fallen trees, she went home with her father, the center of me followed her, but I was left with the shell of me, I needed to see her again, I couldn't explain my need to myself, and that's why it was such a beautiful need, there's nothing wrong with not understanding yourself.”

IfsNeedsHomeTogetherBeautifulFatherLeftSportsUnderstandingTreeNeededChessFallenOur TimeShellsTime TogetherUnderstanding YourselfOur Time TogetherFallen TreesAlmost Over
Book:Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel
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“In bed that night I invented a special drain that would be underneath every pillow in New York, and would connect to the reservoir. Whenever people cried themselves to sleep, the tears would all go to the same place, and in the morning the weatherman could report if the water level of the Reservoir of Tears had gone up or down, and you could know if New York is in heavy boots.”

PeopleIfsKnowsWould BeNightWaterSleepLevelsMorningGoneSpecialNew YorkTearsBedDown AndHeavyReportsBootsCriedPillowDrainsReservoirsWeathermenHeavy Boots
Book:Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel
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“I feel too much. That's what's going on.' 'Do you think one can feel too much? Or just feel in the wrong ways?' 'My insides don't match up with my outsides.' 'Do anyone's insides and outsides match up?' 'I don't know. I'm only me.' 'Maybe that's what a person's personality is: the difference between the inside and outside.' 'But it's worse for me.' 'I wonder if everyone thinks it's worse for him.' 'Probably. But it really is worse for me.”

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Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
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“When I heard your organization was recording testimonies, I knew I had to come. She died in my arms, saying 'I don't want to die.' That is what death is like. It doesn't matter what uniforms the soldiers are wearing. It doesn't matter how good the weapons are. I thought if everyone could see what I saw, we would never have war anymore.”

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Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
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“I thought about all of the things that everyone ever says to each other, and how everyone is going to die, whether it's in a millisecond, or days, or months, or 76.5 years, if you were just born. 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.”

IfsYearsMeanDifferentDiesBornFireOur LivesMonthsSpeedSmokeTrappedSkyscraper
Book:Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel
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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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“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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“We laughed and laughed, together and separately, out loud and silently, we were determined to ignore whatever needed to be ignored, to build a new world from nothing if nothing in our world could be salvaged, it was one of the best days of my life, a day during which I lived my life and didn't think about my life at all.”

IfsThinkingWorldTogetherNeededDeterminedLoudOur WorldLaughedNew WorldIgnored
Book:Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel
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“Just how destructive does a culinary preference have to be before we decide to eat something else? If contributing to the suffering of billions of animals that live miserable lives and (quite often) die in horrific ways isn't motivating, what would be? If being the number one contributor to the most serious threat facing the planet (global warming) isn't enough, what is? And if you are tempted to put off these questions of conscience, to say not now, then when?”

IfsWayDoeEnoughWould BeSufferingDiesAnimalNumbersPlanetsSeriousConscienceThreatBillionsMiserableGlobal WarmingDestructiveCulinaryAnimal RightsPreferenceTemptedContributingHorrificContributorsMiserable LifeAnimal Food
Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
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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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“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.”

IfsKnowsMindShowsCareFilmScienceMemoriesDarkBecomingHorrorOffersHappeningsMiseryFleshMeatVegetarianVeganFactoriesVegetarianismVeganismOur MemoriesHorror FilmSustenanceDark PlacesFactory FarmingEating Animals
Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
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