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I wasn’t trying to invent better and better homes, but to show her that homes didn’t matter, we could live in any home, in any city, in any country, in any century, and be happy, as if the world were just what we lived in.

Jonathan Safran Foer

Please be truthful, but also please be benevolent, please.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Compassionate Truth
The philosopher Elaine Scarry has observed that “beauty always takes place in the particular.” Cruelty, on the other hand, prefers abstraction.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Cruelty Observation Philosophy Place
When I looked at you, my life made sense. Even the bad things made sense. They were necessary to make you possible.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Life Love Necessary Possible Yourself
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.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Beautiful Cleaning Feeling Help Low Morning Myself Shadow Sun
Sadness of not knowing enough words to [express what you mean].
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Enough Expression One Liner Sadness Word
It has shown me that everything is illuminated in the light of the past. It is always along the side of us…on the inside, looking out.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Illumination Light Myself Past Side
I woke up once in the middle of the night, and Buckminster’s paws were on my eyelids. He must have been feeling my nightmares.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Feeling Myself Night Nightmare Wake Up
The world is a big place,” he said, “but so is the inside of an apartment!
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Himself Place Room World
You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Happiness Philosophy Protect Sadness Yourself
Everything else happened – why not the things that could have?
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Destiny Fate Life
Choosing leaf or flesh, factory farm or family farm, does not in itself change the world, but teaching ourselves, our children, our local communities, and our nation to choose conscience over ease can.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Change Choice Community Conscience Family Farm Local Nation Ourselves Word
Am I such a bad person for dreaming of a world that ends when I do? I don’t mean the world ending with respect to me, but every set of eyes closing with mine.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Dreams End Eyes Myself Person World
Words are capable of making experience more vivid, and also of organizing it. They can scare us, and they can comfort us.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Comfortable Experience Organization Scare Word
Of course food has an important cultural use in families, but there are things that have more important cultural uses in families, and broadening the conversation out simply from what’s reasonable also allows in other things.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Allow Conversation Culture Family Food Important Reason Simplicity
She laughed enough to migrate an entire flock of birds. That was how she said yes.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Bird Herself Laughter Migrate
My point is that there are a lot of forces, like the media and the general political rhetoric tells us we should have more. That we should do better than our parents and have a bigger house or a better car.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Better Car Force Home Media Parents Point Politics

I wasn’t trying to invent better and better homes, but to show her that homes didn’t matter, we could live in any home, in any city, in any country, in any century, and be happy, as if the world were just what we lived in.

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I wasn’t trying to invent better and better homes, but to show her that homes didn’t matter, we could live in any home, in any city, in any country, in any century, and be happy, as if the world were just what we lived in.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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