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Whether we change our lives or do nothing, we have responded. To do nothing is to do something.

Jonathan Safran Foer

Everything that’s born has to die, which means our lives are like skyscrapers. The smoke rises at different speeds, but they’re all on fire, and we’re all trapped.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Born Death Fire Live Ourselves Rise Smoking
When we eat factory-farmed meat we live, literally, on tortured flesh. Increasingly, that tortured flesh is becoming our own.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Eat Factory Live Ourselves
I’m sorry for my inability to let unimportant things go, for my inability to hold on to the important things.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Ability Hold On Important Myself Sorry
She avoids mirrors, and lifts a powerful telescope to find herself.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Avoid Finding Herself Mirror Powerful
There are still many different ways to get stuck, existentially stuck. Feeling like, “This is worthless. I’m wasting my time, and I would be wasting the time of someone who tried to read this.” It happens all the time.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Different Myself Reading Wasted Time Way Worth
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.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Deep Missing Myself Problem Surround
It can be challenge enough to have to eat with myself.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Challenge Eat Myself
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.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Animal Civilization Dog Feeling Illegal Name Nation Prosperity Shame Treat
She let out a laugh, and then she put her hand over her mouth, like she was angry at herself for forgetting her sadness.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Angry Forget Hands Herself Laughter Sadness
She extended a hand that I didn’t know how to take, so I broke its fingers with my silence.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Break Fingers Hands Herself Silence
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

Animal Change Expose Live Respond Silence
Every factory-farmed animal is, as a practice, treated in ways that would be illegal if it were a dog or a cat.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Animal Cat Dog Farm Illegal Practice Treat Way
Sometimes I imagined stitching all of our little touches together. How many hundreds of thousands of fingers brushing against each other does it take to make love? Why does anyone ever make love?
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Imagination Love Time Togetherness Touch
You do not have to utter anything you do not want to utter,” I told her, and she said, “Then I would never utter another word again.” “You do not have to do anything that you do not want to do.” “Then I would never do anything again.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Word Yourself
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.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Animal Eat Factory Farm Land Talk
I don’t think that there are any limits to how excellent we could make life seem.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Excellence Life Limitation Thinking

Whether we change our lives or do nothing, we have responded. To do nothing is to do something.

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Whether we change our lives or do nothing, we have responded. To do nothing is to do something.

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