The philosopher Elaine Scarry has observed that “beauty always takes place in the particular.” Cruelty, on the other hand, prefers abstraction.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOERFood 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.
More Jonathan Safran Foer Quotes
-
-
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 -
I could not believe in a God that would challenge faith like this.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER -
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 -
It was not the feeling of completeness I so needed, but the feeling of not being empty.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER -
In the morning, when the nothing vase casts a something shadow, like the memory of someone you’ve lost, what can you say about that?
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 -
I was more alone than if I had been alone.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER -
There’s nothing wrong with not understanding yourself.
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 wish my days could be washed away like the chalk lines of my days.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER -
He promised us that everything would be okay. I was a child, but I knew that everything would not be okay. That did not make my father a liar. It made him my father.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER -
Shyness is when you turn your head away from something you want.
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 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 -
I can only hold on to the things I want to lose.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER