Being with him made my brain quiet. I didn’t have to invent a thing.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOERBeing with him made my brain quiet. I didn’t have to invent a thing.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOERWords are capable of making experience more vivid, and also of organizing it. They can scare us, and they can comfort us.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOERSilently 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 FOERMy 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.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOERHighs and lows make you feel that things matter, but they’re nothing.” “So what’s something?” “Being reliable is something. Being good.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOEREvery factory-farmed animal is, as a practice, treated in ways that would be illegal if it were a dog or a cat.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOERWe spent our lives making livings.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOERI dreamt four nights ago of clock hands descending from the universe like rain, of the moon as a green eye, of mirrors and insects, of a love that never withdrew. It was not the feeling of completeness that I so needed, but the feeling of not being empty.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOERWe are not long-term beings. Not heroes of romances in many volumes. For one gesture, for one word alone, we shall make the effort. We openly admit: our creations will be temporary. We shall have this as our aim: a gesture.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOERAm I such a bad person for dreaming of a world that ends when I do? I don’t mean the world ending with respect to me, but every set of eyes closing with mine.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOERMy 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.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOERSometimes people who seem good end up being not as good as you might have hoped, you know?
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOERWords never mean what we want them to mean.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOERThanksgiving is the holiday that encompasses all others. All of them, from Martin Luther King Day to Arbor Day to Christmas to Valentine’s Day, are in one way or another about being thankful.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOERWhether we change our lives or do nothing, we have responded. To do nothing is to do something.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOERThe bruises go away, and so does how you hate, and so does the feeling that everything you receive from life is something you have earned.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER