We spent our lives making livings.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOERThe world is a big place,” he said, “but so is the inside of an apartment!
More Jonathan Safran Foer Quotes
-
-
Why does watching a dog be a dog fill one with happiness?
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER -
Worthy would-be worlds of words, whorls of working wonder.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER -
Everything that’s born has to die, which means our lives are like skyscrapers. The smoke rises at different speeds, but they’re all on fire, and we’re all trapped.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER -
I tried the key in all the doors, even though he said he didn’t recognize it. It’s not that I didn’t trust him, becuase I did. It’s that at the end of my search I wanted to be able to say: I don’t know how I could have tried harder.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER -
Sometimes you have to put your fears in order.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER -
We burned with love for ourselves, all of us, starters of the fire we suffered- our love was the affliction for which only our love was the cure.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER -
Shyness is when you turn your head away from something you want.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER -
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 -
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.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER -
I’m sorry for my inability to let unimportant things go, for my inability to hold on to the important things.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER -
I don’t think that there are any limits to how excellent we could make life seem.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER -
You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER -
I thought for a minute, and then I got heavy, heavy boots.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER -
We aren’t exactly emptying the oceans; it’s more like clear-cutting a forest with thousands of species to create massive fields with one type of soybean.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER -
The animals are those things that God likes but doesn’t love.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER -
If the thrill of hunting were in the hunt, or even in the marksmanship, a camera would do just as well.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER -
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.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER -
I felt suddenly shy. I was not used to shy. I was used to shame. Shyness is when you turn your head away from something you want. Shame is when you turn your head away from something you do not want.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER -
I took the world into me, rearranged it, and sent it back out as a question: “Do you like me?
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER -
Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER -
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.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER -
Please be truthful, but also please be benevolent, please.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER -
I looked at everyone and wondered where they came from, and who they missed, and what they were sorry for.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER -
This is love, she thought, isn’t it? When you notice someone’s absence and hate that absence more than anything? More, even, than you love his presence?
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER -
The world is a big place,” he said, “but so is the inside of an apartment!
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER -
She was a genius of sadness, immersing herself in it, separating its numerous strands, appreciating its subtle nuances. She was a prism through which sadness could be divided into its infinite spectrum.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER