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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.”

IfsThinkingKnowsMeanDoeTwoProblemBigsMightCareThreeCausesNumbersEnvironmentEatingBasesBlindEnvironmentalClimate ChangeSpotsMeatGlobal WarmingEnvironmentalistEnvironmental ProblemsBlind SpotsMeat EatingCauses Of Global Warming
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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“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.”

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Book:Everything Is Illuminated
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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.”

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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.”

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Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
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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.”

IfsThinkingKnowsWayFeelsPersonsDifferencesEmotionWonderToo MuchPersonalityWrong WayInside And Outside
Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
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“Cher Marcel, Allô. I am Oskar's mom. I have thought about it a ton, and I have decided that it isn't obvious why Oskar should go to French lessons, so he will no longer be going to go see you on Sundays like he used to. I want to thank you very much for everything you have taught Oskar, particularly the conditional tense, which is weird. Obviously, there's no need to call me when Oskar doesn't come to his lessons, because I already know, because this was my decision. Also, I will keep sending you checks, because you are a nice guy. Votre ami dévouée, Mademoiselle Schell.”

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Book:Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel
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“We need a better way to talk about eating animals. We need a way that brings meat to the center of public discussion in the same way it is often at the center of our plates. This doesn't require that we pretend we are going to have a collective agreement. However strong our intuitions are about what's right for us personally and even about what's right for others, we all know in advance that our positions will clash with those of our neighbors. What do we do with that most inevitable reality? Drop the conversation, or find a way to reframe it?”

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Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
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“We can't plead ignorance, only indifference. Those alive today are the generations that came to know better. We have the burden and the opportunity of living in the moment when the critique of factory farming broke into the popular consciousness. We are the ones of whom it will be fairly asked, What did you do when you learned the truth about eating animals?”

KnowsMomentsTodayOpportunityAnimalConsciousnessAliveGenerationsIgnoranceEatingBurdenBrokeIndifferenceFactoriesLive In The MomentFarmingCritiqueFactory FarmingEating Animals
Book:Eating Animals
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“And nothing inspires as much shame as being a parent. Children confront us with our paradoxes and hypocrisies, and we are exposed. You need to find an answer for every why — Why do we do this? Why don’t we do that? — and often there isn’t a good one. So you say, simply, because. Or you tell a story that you know isn’t true. And whether or not your face reddens, you blush. The shame of parenthood — which is a good shame — is that we want our children to be more whole than we are, to have satisfactory answers.”

KnowsWantNeedsChildrenWholeStoriesFacesParentAnswersInspireShameOur ChildrenHypocrisyParadoxYour FaceParenthoodExposedBeing A ParentParent Child
Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
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“Almost always when I told someone I was writing a book about "eating animals", they assumed, even without knowing anything about my views, that it was a case for vegetarianism. It's a telling assumption, one that implies not only that a thorough inquiry into animal agriculture would lead one away from eating meat, but that most people already know that to be the case.”

PeopleKnowsWritingBookAnimalViewsCasesKnowingEatingMeatAssumptionAgricultureInquiryVegetarianismWriting A BookThoroughEating AnimalsEating MeatAnimal Agriculture
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.”

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Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
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“We know, at least, that this decision (ending factory farming) will help prevent deforestation, curb global warming, reduce pollution, save oil reserves, lessen the burden on rural America, decrease human rights abuses, improve publish health, and help eliminate the most systematic animal abuse in history.”

KnowsHumansHelpingAmericaDecisionAnimalRightsAbuseHuman RightsBurdenOilGlobal WarmingFactoriesPollutionReservesPublishFarmingSystematicDecreaseCurbDeforestationFactory FarmingAnimal AbuseRural America
Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
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“Darling, You asked me to write you a letter, so I am writing you a letter. I do not know why I am writing you this letter, or what this letter is supposed to be about, but I am writing it nonetheless, because I love you very much and trust that you have some good purpose for having me write this letter. I hope that one day you will have the experience of doing something you do not understand for someone you love. Your father”

KnowsWritingPurposeFatherLove YouOne DayLettersSupposed To BeDarlingSomeone You LoveI Love You Very Much
Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
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“However much we obfuscate or ignore it, we know that the factory farm is inhumane in the deepest sense of the word. And we know that there is something that matters in a deep way about the lives we create for the living beings most within our power. Our response to the factory farm is ultimately a test of how we respond to the powerless, to the most distant, to the voiceless--it is a test of how we act when no one is forcing us to act one way or another.”

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Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
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“Why are entire flocks of industrial birds dying at once? And what about the people eating those birds? Just the other day, one of the local pediatricians was telling me he's seeing all kinds of illnesses that he never used to see. Not only juvenile diabetes, but inflammatory and autoimmune diseases that a lot of the docs don't even know what to call. And girls are going through puberty much earlier; and kids are allergic to just about everything, and asthma is out of control. Everyone knows it's our foods... Kids today are the first generation to grow up on this stuff.”

PeopleKnowsFirstsKindKidsTodayUsedGirlGrowsStuffGrowing UpSeeingGenerationsDyingDiseaseEatingBirdIllnessLocalsAll KindsFlocksDiabetesPubertyJuvenileAllergicAsthmaPediatricianAutoimmune DiseaseJuvenile Diabetes
Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
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