Quotes from Jonathan Safran Foer

In adancul inimii lor, tinerii sunt mai singuri decat batranii. Am citit asta undeva, intr-o carte si mi-a ramas in cap. Poate ca e adevarat. Poate ca nu. Mai curand, tinerii si batranii sunt singuri in feluri diferite, fiecare in felul sau...

I'm sure people tell you this constantly, but if you looked up 'incredibly beautiful' in the dictionary, there would be a picture of you. She cracked up a bit and said, People never tell me that. I bet they do. She cracked up a bit more. They don't. Then you hang out with the wrong people. You might be right about that. Because you're incredibly beautiful.

De ce facem asa? De ce lucrurile dureroase sunt intotdeauna niste electromagneti?

It was the last, which made it the most precious.

The ground is still filled iwth rings, and money, and pictures, and Jewish things. I was only able to find a few of them, but they fill the earth. The hero did not ask me once what she was saying. I am not certain if he knew what she was saying, or if he knew not to inquire.

almost all of the shtetl's three hundred–odd citizens had gathered to debate that about which they knew nothing. The less a citizen knew, the more adamantly he or she argued. There was nothing new in this. A month before there had been the question of whether it might send a better message to the children to plug, finally, the bagel's hole.

Esti ridicola. Nu fac decat sa dorm in alta camera. - Dar iubirea inseamna o camera. Asta-i tot ce inseamna.

Am facut eforturi sa te fac sa apari ca o persoana cu mai putina neliniste, asa cum mi-ai comandat sa fac in atatea ocazii. Asta e dificil de realizat, pentru ca in realitate tu esti o persoana cu foarte multa neliniste. Poate ar trebui sa folosesti droguri.

Stephen Hawking won't come to Israel? I'm not one to punch a quadriplegic with glasses, but I'm sure he won't mind if we ask for his voice back—you know, the one that was created by Israeli engineers.

I read the first chapter of A Brief History of Time when Dad was still alive, and I got incredibly heavy boots about how relatively insignificant life is, and how, compared to the universe and compared to time, it didn't even matter if I existed at all. When Dad was tucking me in that night and we were talking about the book, I asked if he could think of a solution to that problem. Which problem? The problem of how relatively insignificant we are.

I've lived long enough to know I'm not one-hundred-percent anything!

In the water I saw my father's face, and that face saw the face of its father, and so on, and so on, reflecting backward to the beginning of time, to the face of God, in whose image we were created. We burned with love for ourselves, all of us, starters of the fire we suffered—our love was the affliction for which only our love was the cure . . .

A Lutsk ti ho comprato dei libri, le disse Yankel chiudendo la porta a prima sera, chiudendo fuori il resto del mondo. Non possiamo permetterceli, ribatté lei afferrando la borsa pesante. Domani dovrò restituirli. Non possiamo permetterci neanche di non averli. Qual è la cosa che possiamo permetterci di meno: averli o non averli? A mio parere, perdiamo in ogni caso. Meglio perdere con i libri.

I'd been someone else in a different world I'd've done something different, but I was myself, and the world was the world, so I was silent.

Trebuie sa marturisesc ca am capatat depresie atunci si inca mai am.

Did she feel pity for me, did she want me to suffer? The next morning she led me to the coat closet, which faces the living room, she went in with me, we were in there all day, although she knew he wouldn't come until the afternoon, it was too small, we needed more space between us, we needed Nothing Places, she said "This is what it's felt like, except you weren't here." We looked at each other in silence for hours.

What do you think is going on?' '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 out-sides.' '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 the 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.

We need enormous pockets, pockets big enough for our families, and our friends, and even the people who aren't on our lists, people we've never met but still want to protect. We need pockets for boroughs and for cities, a pocket that could hold the universe.

He wrote, You're being crazy.     You're going to catch a cold. I already have a cold. You are going to catch a colder.

Just how common do such savageries have to be for a decent person to be unable to overlook them? If you knew that one in one thousand food animals suffered actions like those described above, would you continue to eat animals? One in one hundred? One in ten?

I parenti sono le persone con cui mai bisogna avere vergogna. Sbagli, I parenti sono le persone che ti fanno sentire la vergogna quando te lo meriti.

Am stat cuibariti cateva momente, apoi ne-am intins amandoi pe spate si iarba era ca un pat. Pentru ca era asa de intuneric, puteam vedea multe dintre stele. Era ca si cand ne-am fi aflat sub o umbrela mare sau sub o rochie. Am vorbit multe minute despre multe lucruri, dar de fapt eu nu-l ascultam si nici el nu ma asculta, si eu nu ma ascultam pe mine, iar el nu se asculta pe sine. Ne aflam pe iarba, sub stele si asta este ceea ce faceam.

Cartile sunt pentru aceia care nu au vieti adevarate.

Mesa, adorno de marfil, arcoíris, cebolla, peinado, molusco, Sabbat, violencia, cutícula, melodrama, cuneta, miel, pañuelo... Nada la conmovía. (...) Nada conseguía ser más de lo que era en realidad. Eran solo cosas, prisioneras de su propia esencia.