Quotes from Jonathan Safran Foer

I used to be an atheist, which means I didn't believe in things that couldn't be observed. I believed that once you're dead, you're dead forever, and you don't feel anything, and you don't even dream. It's not that I believe in things that can't be observed now, because I don't. It's that I believe that things are extremely complicated.

My father's face, when he said that, dissolved into a stillness, a sad expression, sadder than human feeling.

Time was passing like a hand waving from a train I wanted to be on.

Despite the near-constant regret he felt about being himself, he never confused himself for the problem. The problem was the world. It was the world that didn't fit. But how much happiness has ever resulted from correcting the record on the culpability of the world?

There are more places you haven't heard of than you've heard of!

When it comes to health, this research suggests that individual behavior is much more impactful than federal dietary guidelines, which most Americans do not meet. While structures matter-food deserts, subsidies, and unhealthy cafeterias undeniably influence diet-the most contagious standards are the ones that we model.

Little was known, which made what little was known terrifying.

Love me, because love doesn't exist, and I have tried everything that does.

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. Foer, Jonathan Safran (2006-04-04). Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel (Kindle Locations 1882-1883). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.

I was not going to dance at our wedding and you were not going to speak.

He was too ethical, and too much of a coward. (Sometimes it was hard to differentiate.)

Shy 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.

At this moment in the environmental movement, we can jump from the bridge, or we can cross it. We can allow the fear that it's too late or too difficult to ensure resources for future generations to incapacitate us, or we can allow those fears to capacitate us.

They had never seen one another from afar. They had never known the deepest intimacy, that closeness attainable only with distance

The Uprighters called them names and promised them an eternity of agony in the next world for their eagerness to be comfortable in this one. But like Shmul S, the intestine-tied milkman, the Slouchers couldn't give a shit.

The twins hid their bodies under their father's tallis, like ghosts. The horse at the bottom of the river, shrouded by the sunken night sky, closed its heavy eyes. The prehistoric ant in Yankel's ring, which had lain motionless in the honey-colored amber since long before Noah hammered the first plank, hid its head between its many legs, in shame.

Als we op een dag een levensvorm tegenkomen die machtiger en intelligenter is dan wij zelf, en die soort zou ons zien zoals wij vissen zien, wat zouden we dan als argument aanvoeren om niet te worden opgegeten?

Temple Grandin has argued that ordinary people can become sadistic from the dehumanizing work of constant slaughter.

Het keuze-geobsedeerde Westen geeft de mens die anders wil eten meer ruimte dan elke andere cultuur ooit heeft gedaan, maar de ironie wil dat de volstrekt niet kieskeurige omnivoor - 'ik vind alles best, ik eet alles' - maatschappelijk bewuster kan lijken dan de mens die op een manier probeert te eten die goed is voor de samenleving. De keuze voor een bepaald soort voedsel wordt door allerlei factoren bepaald, maar de rede (en zelfs het bewustzijn) staat doorgaans niet hoog op die lijst.

I like to see people reunited, maybe that's a silly thing, but what can I say, I like to see people run to each other, I like the kissing and the crying, I like the impatience, the stories that the mouth can't tell fast enough, the ears that aren't big enough, the eyes that can't take in all of the change, I like the hugging, the bringing together, the end of missing someone, I sit on the side with a coffee and write in my daybook

From the unemployed Sloucher Lumpl W, who reclined on Passover not because it was religious custom but because why should that night be different from all others?: I'm not the greatest person that ever lived, but I would be a good father, and you know it.

se nada importa, não há nada a salvar

Look, I'm not always right. I realize that. But I'm always strong.

Als ik ergens vertel dat ik vegetariër ben, word ik bijna altijd gewezen op een inconsequentie of probeert men een zwak punt te ontdekken in een bewering die ik nooit heb gedaan. (Ik heb vaak het idee dat mijn vegetarische levenswijze voor zulke mensen belangrijker is dan voor mij.)