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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.

Jonathan Safran Foer

The only thing more painful than being an active forgetter is to be an inert rememberer.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Active Forget Pain Remember
She let out a laugh, and then she put her hand over her mouth, like she was angry at herself for forgetting her sadness.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Angry Forget Hands Herself Laughter Sadness
My life story is the story of everyone I’ve ever met.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Life Myself Story
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
I got incredibly heavy boots about how relatively insignificant life is, and how, compared to the universe and compared to time, it didn’t even matter if I existed at all.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Existence heavy Myself Time Universe
You do not have to utter anything you do not want to utter,” I told her, and she said, “Then I would never utter another word again.” “You do not have to do anything that you do not want to do.” “Then I would never do anything again.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Word Yourself
Feathers filled the small room. Our laughter kept the feathers in the air. I thought about birds. Could they fly is there wasn’t someone, somewhere, laughing?
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Laughter Myself Room Small
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
If we communicated with something like music, we would never be misunderstood, because there is nothing in music to understand.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Communication Music Understand
I watched the sheets breathe when she breathed, like how Dad used to say that trees inhale when people exhale, because I was too young to understand the truth about biological processes.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Breathe Father Process Tree Understand Young
I have no need for the past, I thought, like a child. I did not consider that the past might have a need for me.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Children Myself Need Past
Tomorrow was over the horizon, and would take an entire day to reach.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Day Future Horizon Reach
One of the greatest opportunities to live our values-or betray them-lies in the food we put on our plates.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Greatness Live Opportunity Ourselves Value
Silently the animal catches our glance. The animal looks at us, and whether we look away or not, we are exposed. Whether we change our lives or do nothing, we have responded. To do nothing is to do something.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Animal Change Expose Live Respond Silence
I wish my days could be washed away like the chalk lines of my days.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Day Myself Wash
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.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Admire Book Feeling Reading Yourself
If the thrill of hunting were in the hunt, or even in the marksmanship, a camera would do just as well.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Camera Hunting Thrill
She said, “Do you have more things that you need, or more that you don’t need?” I said, “It depends on what it means to need.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Deep Myself Need Philosophy
When I was a girl, my life was music that was always getting louder. Everything moved me. A dog following a stranger. That made me feel so much.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Feeling Life Loud Music Myself Stranger
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
It broke my heart into more pieces than my heart was made of, why can’t people say what they mean at the time?
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Heart Meaning Myself People Pieces Word
I took the world into me, rearranged it, and sent it back out as a question: “Do you like me?
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Arrangement Myself Question World
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.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Blood Bruise Cry Feeling Life Myself Worst
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.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Asleep Person Possible Sleep Wake Willing
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
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.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Bad Character Goodness Myself Person Unknown
We often use technology to save time, but increasingly, it either takes the saved time along with it, or makes the saved time less present, intimate and rich. I worry that the closer the world gets to our fingertips, the further it gets from our hearts.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Heart Intimate Myself Often Present Rich Save Technology Time

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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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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Popular Authors

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