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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

The philosopher Elaine Scarry has observed that “beauty always takes place in the particular.” Cruelty, on the other hand, prefers abstraction.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Cruelty Observation Philosophy Place
Words are capable of making experience more vivid, and also of organizing it. They can scare us, and they can comfort us.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Comfortable Experience Organization Scare Word
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.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Different Myself Silence World
I’m so afraid of losing something I love that I refuse to love anything.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Afraid Lose Love Myself Refusal
What does it remember like?
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

One Liner Remember
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
I put my hand on the doorknob because I thought maybe her hand was on the doorknob on the other side.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Hands Myself Side Thinking
I imagine a line, a white line, painted on the sand and on the ocean, from me to you.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Imagination Myself Ocean Yourself
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

Absence Hate Himself Love Presence
We 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 FOER

Admit Effort Goal Human Open Romance Temporary Time Volume
I can forgive you for leaving, but not for coming back.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Forgiveness Leave Myself Return
Not 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.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Equality Fingers Respond Responsibility Throw Yourself
Fiction works when it makes a reader feel something strongly.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Feeling Fiction Reading Strong Work
We had everything to say to each other, but no ways to say it.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Each Other Talk Way Word
I thought for a minute, and then I got heavy, heavy boots.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

heavy Myself Thinking Time
Feeding my children is not like feeding myself: it matters more.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Children Feed Myself Worth

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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