With writing, we have second chances.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOERNot 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.
More Jonathan Safran Foer Quotes
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Sometimes you have to put your fears in order.
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The more exposure people have to the realities of factory farming, the more we will see people rejecting it. It’s already happening.
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He was someone whom everyone admired and liked but whom nobody knew. He was like a book that you could feel good holding, that you could talk about without ever having read, that you could recommend.
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Everything I did, I did because I thought it was the correct thing to do, I am not a hero, it is true, But I am not a bad person, either.
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I didn’t feel empty. I wished I’d felt empty. … I wanted to be empty like an overturned pitcher. But I was full like a stone.
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My wife and I have chosen to bring up our children as vegetarians. In another time or place, we might have made a different decision. But the realities of our present moment compelled us to make that choice.
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Why didn’t I learn to treat everything like it was the last time. My greatest regret was how much I believed in the future.
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This is my heart. You are touching it with your left hand. You are touching it with your left hand, not because you are left-handed, although you might be, but because I am holding it against my heart. What you are feeling is the beating of my heart. It is what keeps me alive.
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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.
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One day you will do things for me that you hate. That is what it means to be family.
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In my family, Father is the world champion at ending conversations.
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I imagine a line, a white line, painted on the sand and on the ocean, from me to you.
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It was not the feeling of completeness I so needed, but the feeling of not being empty.
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Sometimes people who seem good end up being not as good as you might have hoped, you know?
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While it is always possible to wake a person who’s sleeping, no amount of noise will wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.
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I could not believe in a God that would challenge faith like this.
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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.
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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.
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Just to be a functioning adult in the world, we develop all of these layers of protection. When we see homeless people, we don’t cry, even though homeless people probably deserve our tears – you know, it’s a horrible thing.
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Is that growing old? Or is it something worse?
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Cruelty depends on an understanding of cruelty, and the ability to choose against it. Or to choose to ignore it.
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I put my hand on the doorknob because I thought maybe her hand was on the doorknob on the other side.
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You can call your turkey organic and torture it daily.
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We shared the smile of recognizing ourselves in each other, how many imposters do I have? Do we all make the same mistakes, or has one of us gotten it right, or even just a bit less wrong, am I the imposter?
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And she would say, “Today you believe in God?” And he would say, “Today I believe in love”.
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Food serves two parallel purposes: it nourishes and it helps you remember. Eating and storytelling are inseparable-the saltwater is also tears; the honey not only tastes sweet, but makes us think of sweetness; the matzo is the bread of our affliction.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER