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Everything else happened – why not the things that could have?

Jonathan Safran Foer

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

Better Country Home Invention Live World
Part of living your life is an awareness of the opportunities that can be missed and an awareness that time moves in one direction.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Aware Direction Life Live Miss Move Oneself Opportunity
The French, who love their dogs, sometimes eat their horses. The Spanish, who love their horses, sometimes eat their cows. The Indians, who love their cows, sometimes eat their dogs.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

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

Compassionate Truth
I wasn’t having second thoughts, but I was having thoughts.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Myself Thinking
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.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Day Distance Fill Memories Reach Time Walk Yourself
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 imagine a line, a white line, painted on the sand and on the ocean, from me to you.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Imagination Myself Ocean Yourself
Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Bone Hear Live Myself Time Weight
We are lying to ourselves and to each other. Lying about what? I don’t care if we’re lying. I am a bad person. I don’t care. I don’t care what you are.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Bad Each Other Lying Yourself
There are still many different ways to get stuck, existentially stuck. Feeling like, “This is worthless. I’m wasting my time, and I would be wasting the time of someone who tried to read this.” It happens all the time.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Different Myself Reading Wasted Time Way Worth
I put my hand on the doorknob because I thought maybe her hand was on the doorknob on the other side.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Hands Myself Side Thinking
Every factory-farmed animal is, as a practice, treated in ways that would be illegal if it were a dog or a cat.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Animal Cat Dog Farm Illegal Practice Treat Way
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.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Appearance Easy Eat Goodness Social Society Way
Sadness of not knowing enough words to [express what you mean].
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Enough Expression One Liner Sadness Word
If 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.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Different Myself Silence World

Everything else happened – why not the things that could have?

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Everything else happened – why not the things that could have?

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