Quotes from Jonathan Safran Foer

The only way to overcome sadness is to consume it.

But I still couldn't figure out what it all meant. The more I found out, the less I understood.

She has become an expert at confusing what is with what was with what should be with what could be .

It broke my heart into more pieces than my heart was made of, why can't people say what they mean at the time?

There's nothing wrong with not understanding yourself.

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.

If nothing matters, there's nothing to save.

I tried the key in all the doors, even though he said he didn't recognize it. It's not that I didn't trust him, becuase I did. It's that at the end of my search I wanted to be able to say: I don't know how I could have tried harder.

Everything is to protect you. I exist in case you need to be protected.

Words never mean what we want them to mean.

Every moment before this one depends on this one.

We talked about nothing in particular, but it felt like we were talking about the most important things...

Why didn't he say goodbye? I gave myself a bruise. Why didn't he say 'I love you'?

Instead of singing in the shower, I would write out the lyrics of my favourite songs, the ink would turn the water blue or red or green, and the music would run down my legs.

What are your ghosts like?) (They are on the insides of the lids of my eyes.) (This is also where my ghosts reside.) (You have ghosts?) (Of course I have ghosts.) (But you are a child.) (I am not a child.) (But you have not known love.) (These are my ghosts, the spaces amid love.)

She let out a laugh, and then she put her hand over her mouth, like she was angry at herself for forgetting her sadness.

If we communicated with something like music, we would never be misunderstood, because there is nothing in music to understand...... But until we find this new way of speaking, until we can find a nonapproximate vocabulary, nonsense words are the best thing we've got. Ifactifice is one such word.

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.

We slept in the same bed. There was never a right time to say it. It was always unnecessary. The books in my father's shed were sighing. The sheets were rising and falling around me with Anna's breathing. I thought about waking her. but it was unnecessary. There would be other nights. 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... It's always necessary. I love you,...

The end of the world has come often, and continues to come.

It's so hard to express yourself.' I understand this.' I want to express myself.' The same is true for me.' I'm looking for my voice.' It's in your mouth.' I want to do something I'm not ashamed of.' Something you are proud of, yes?' Not even. I just don't want to be ashamed.

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.

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?

She laughed enough to migrate an entire flock of birds. That was how she said yes