Quotes from Jonathan Safran Foer

The appearance was misleading- human dreams; rubbish heaps abundant yet ephemeral sudden and splendid, only to wilt and perish

What's so great about feeling and dreaming?

I said, not knowing what the next words out of my mouth would be, but wanting them to be mine, wanting, more than I'd ever wanted anything, to express the center of me to and be understood.

When I learned about this, I was told that it was "instinct." ("Instinct" continues to be the explanation of choice whenever animal behavior implies too much intelligence.) Instinct, though, wouldn't go very far in explaining how pigeons use human transportation routes to navigate. Pigeons follow highways and take particular exits, likely following many of the same landmarks as the humans driving below.

The more you love someone, he came to think, the harder it is to tell them.

It takes life to live life

And how can you say I love you to someone you love? I rolled onto my side and fell asleep next to her. Here is the point of everything I have been trying to tell you, Oskar. It's always necessary. I love you, Grandma.

I felt suddenly shy.     I was not used to shy.     I was used to shame.     Shyness is when you turn your head away from something you want.     Shame is when you turn your head away from something you do not want.

I said, I want to tell you something She said, you can tell me tomorrow. I had never told her how much I loved her. She was my sister. We slept in the same bed. There was never a right time to say it. It was always unnecessary

You're going to catch a cold. I already have a cold. You are going to catch a colder.

Dat is de tragiek van de liefde: je houdt van niets zoveel als van dat wat je mist.

Jacob was right when, after Sam's injury, he said it was too much love for happiness.

That ghost of a smile fell away and receded and finally faded.

We dramatically overstate the role of science deniers, because it allows science acceptors to feel righteous without challenging us to act on the knowledge we accept. Only 14 percent of Americans deny climate change, which is a significantly lower percentage than who deny evolution, or that the earth orbits the sun. Sixty-nine percent of American voters—including the majority of Republicans—say that the United States should have remained in the Paris climate accord.

We live in a world in which it's conventional to treat an animal like a hunk of wood and extreme to treat an animal like an animal.

Why is taste, the crudest of our senses, exempted from the ethical rules that govern our other senses?

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 was in heavy boots.

They were miserable at sports, but great at fantasy sports. They avoided fights, but sought arguments.

I will walk without noise and I will open the door in darkness and I will

None of my pets know their own names, what kind of person am I?

We can think of our atmosphere as a budget and our emissions as expenses: because methane and nitrous oxide are significantly larger greenhouse expenses than CO2 in the short term, they are the most urgent to cut. Because they are primarily created by our food choices, they are also easier to cut.

They lay in silence, thinking their own thoughts, each trying to know the other's. They were becoming strangers on top of each other.

Objects that don't exist don't exist. If we were to imagine such a thing as an object that didn't exist, it would be that thing that God hated. This is the strongest argument against the nonbeliever. If God didn't exist, he would have to hate himself, and that is obviously nonsense.

We are traumatized people. And nothing else has trauma's power to deform the mind and heart.