Food 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.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOERWhy does watching a dog be a dog fill one with happiness?
More Jonathan Safran Foer Quotes
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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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I have so much to say to you. I want to begin at the beginning, because that is what you deserve. I want to tell you everything, without leaving out a single detail. But where is the beginning? And what is everything?
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But come. No explaining or mending. Be beside me somewhere.
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Being with him made my brain quiet. I didn’t have to invent a thing.
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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.
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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.
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Cruelty depends on an understanding of cruelty, and the ability to choose against it. Or to choose to ignore it.
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She laughed enough to migrate an entire flock of birds. That was how she said yes.
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I took the world into me, rearranged it, and sent it back out as a question: “Do you like me?
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Let love write on you for awhile.
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I felt shame for living in a nation of unprecedented prosperity-a nation that spends a smaller percentage of income on food than any other civilization has in human history-but in the name of affordability treats the animals it eats with cruelty so extreme it would be illegal if inflicted on a dog.
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She had fallen in love so many times that she began to suspect she was not falling in love at all, but doing something much more ordinary.
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Ironically, the utterly unselective omnivore — “I’m easy; I’ll eat anything” — can appear more socially sensitive than the individual who tries to eat in a way that is good for society.
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I missed you even when I was with you. That’s been my problem. I miss what I already have, and I surround myself with things that are missing.
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My life story is the story of everyone I’ve ever met.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER