Quotes from Jonathan Safran Foer

She] always knew he was a fiction but believed in him anyway.

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 want an infinitely blank book and the rest of time... ...why didn't I learn to treat everything like it was the last time, my greatest regret is how much I believed in the future.

Each day has been chained to the previous one. But the weeks have wings. Anyone who believes that a second is faster than a decade did not live my life.

Not responding is a response--we are equally responsible for what we don't do. In the case of animal slaughter, to throw your hands in the air is to wrap your fingers around a knife handle.

Memory was supposed to fill the time, but it made time a hole to be filled. Each second was two hundred yards, to be walked, crawled. You couldn't see the next hour, it was so far in the distance. Tomorrow was over the horizon, and would take an entire day to reach.

I could not believe in a God that would challenge faith like this.

She said, 'Believe it or not, I used to be idealistic.' I asked her what 'idealistic' meant. 'It means you live by what you think is right.' 'You don't do that anymore?' 'There are questions I don't ask anymore.

It's so beautiful at this hour. The sun is low, the shadows are long, the air is cold and clean. You won't be awake for another five hours, but I can't help feeling that we're sharing this clear and beautiful morning.

Do you eat chicken because you are familiar with the scientific literature on them and have decided that their suffering doesn't matter, or do you do it because it tastes good?

people with nothing to declare carry the most.

The images of his infinite pasts and infinite futures washed over him as he waited, paralyzed, in the present.

Memory was supposed to fill the time, but it made time a hole to be filled.

He knew that I love you also means 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.

I will describe my eyes and then begin the story. My eyes are blue and resplendent. Now I will begin the story.

Literature was the only religion her father practiced, when a book fell on the floor he kissed it, when he was done with a book he tried to give it away to someone who would love it.

only someone who'd never been an animal would put up a sign saying not to feed them....

No matter how much I feel, I'm not going to let it out. If I have to cry, I'm gonna cry on the inside. If I have to bleed, I'll bruise. If my heart starts going crazy, I'm not gonna tell everyone in the world about it. It doesn't help anything. It just makes everyone's life worse.

I didn't understand why I needed help, because it seemed to me that you should wear heavy boots when your dad dies, and if you aren't wearing heavy boots, then you need help.

Since the world has changed so much, the same values don't lead to the same choices anymore.

I looked at everyone and wondered where they came from, and who they missed, and what they were sorry for.

Because sometimes people who seem good end up being not as good as you might have hoped.

Once you hear something, you can never return to the time before you heard it.

If we were to one day encounter a form of life more powerful and intelligent than our own, and it regarded us as we regard fish, what would be our argument against being eaten?