The philosopher Elaine Scarry has observed that “beauty always takes place in the particular.” Cruelty, on the other hand, prefers abstraction.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOEROf course food has an important cultural use in families, but there are things that have more important cultural uses in families, and broadening the conversation out simply from what’s reasonable also allows in other things.
More Jonathan Safran Foer Quotes
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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.
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Feeding my children is not like feeding myself: it matters more.
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Ninety-nine percent of all land animals eaten or used to produce milk and eggs in the United States are factory farmed. So although there are important exceptions, to speak about eating animals today is to speak about factory farming.
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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.
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We had everything to say to each other, but no ways to say it.
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In truth I was manufacturing a brick wall of shits.
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The world is a big place,” he said, “but so is the inside of an apartment!
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Love me, because love doesn’t exist, and I have tried everything that does.
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Shyness is when you turn your head away from something you want.
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Sadness of not knowing enough words to [express what you mean].
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It was not the feeling of completeness I so needed, but the feeling of not being empty.
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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.
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We shared the smile of recognizing ourselves in each other, how many imposters do I have? Do we all make the same mistakes, or has one of us gotten it right, or even just a bit less wrong, am I the imposter?
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She let out a laugh, and then she put her hand over her mouth, like she was angry at herself for forgetting her sadness.
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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