Quotes from Jonathan Safran Foer

You are a schmuck," I informed the hero. "You're not using the word correctly," he said. "Yes I am," I said.

If there is no love in the world, we will make a new world, and we will give it heavy walls.

The letter was destroyed, but its final paragraph is still inside of me. She wrote, I wish I could be a girl again, with the chance to live my life again. I have suffered so much more than I needed to. And the joys I have felt have not always been joyous. I could have lived differently.

He thought cucumbers were good enough, but pickles were delicious—so absolutely delicious, in fact, that he questioned whether they were, indeed, made from cucumbers, which were only good enough.

She was the tree and also the river flowing away from the tree, 'There are worse things,' she said, 'worse than being like us. Look, at least we're alive,' I could see that she wanted those last words back, but the current was too strong.

Waarom? Omdat god de plagiaris liefheeft. Niet voor niets staat geschreven: 'En God schiep de mens naar Zijn beeld; naar het beeld van God schiep Hij hem.' God is de eerste aller plagiarissen. [...] Dus als wij plagiaat plegen, scheppen wij in feite 'naar het beeld van' en dragen we bij aan de vervolmaking van de schepping.

I walked through Long Island City, Woodside, Elmhurst, and Jackson Heights. I shook my tambourine the whole time, because it helped me remember that even though I was going through different neighborhoods, I was still me.

I'm possibly possible.

Zij sprak openhartig over de mishandelingen door haar vader, en liet hem de beurse plekken zien die zelfs een huid niet kan vertonen.

We all choose things, and we all choose against things. I want to be the kind of person who chooses for more than chooses against, but like Safran, and like you, I discover myself choosing this time and the next time what I am certain is good and correct, and against what I am certain is worthy. I choose that I will not, instead of that I will.

THE PROBLEM OF EVIL: WHY UNCONDITIONALLY BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO UNCONDITIONALLY GOOD PEOPLE They never do.

As for the bracelet Mom wore to the funeral, what I did was I converted Dad's last voice message into Morse code, and I used sky-blue beads for silence, maroon beads for breaks between letters, violet beads for breaks between words, and long and short pieces of string between the beads for long and short beeps, which are actually called blips, I think, or something.

It wasn't too late to turn around, before I got to the place I couldn't come back from.

She told him that she wished there were another commandment, an eleventh etched into the tablets: Do not change.

I'd experienced joy, but not nearly enough, could there be enough? The end of suffering does not justify the suffering, and so there is no end to suffering.

The longer your mother and I lived together, the more we took each other's assumptions for granted, the less was said, the more misunderstood.

He knew that I love you also means I love you more than anyone loves you, or has loved you, or will love you, and also, I love you in a way that no one loves you, or has loved you, or will love you, and also, I love you in a way that I love no one else, and never have loved anyone else, and never will love anyone else.

there's going to come a time when we won't speak for days on end." "There won't." "There will. Every parent thinks it will never happen to them, but it happens to everyone.

She went home with her father, the center of me followed her, but I was left with the shell of me.

She let the dust accumulate on her shoulders.

and making her happy is another one of my raisons d'être.

As told by Kafka's close friend Max Brod: Suddenly he began to speak to the fish in their illuminated tanks. 'Now at least I can look at you in peace, I don't eat you anymore.' It was the time he turned strictly vegetarian.

Brod's life was a slow realisation that the world was not for her, and that for whatever reason, she would never be happy and honest at the same time.

The choice-obsessed modern West is probably more accommodating to individuals who choose to eat differently than any other culture has ever been, but ironically, the utterly unselective omnivore - "I'm easy; I'll eat anything" - can appear more socially sensitive than the individual who tries to eat in a way that is good for society. Food choices are determined by many factors, but reason (even consciousness) is not generally high on the list.