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Everything else happened – why not the things that could have?

Jonathan Safran Foer

Cruelty depends on an understanding of cruelty, and the ability to choose against it. Or to choose to ignore it.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Ability Choice Cruelty Ignorance Understand
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
A few weeks after the worst day, I started writing lots of letters. I don’t know why, but it was one of the only things that made my boots lighter.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Day Oneself Start Worst
My 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 FOER

Better Car Force Home Media Parents Point Politics
Worthy would-be worlds of words, whorls of working wonder.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Wonder Word Work World Worth
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
The French, who love their dogs, sometimes eat their horses. The Spanish, who love their horses, sometimes eat their cows. The Indians, who love their cows, sometimes eat their dogs.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Animal Irony Time
The 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

Bruise Earn Feeling Hate Life Yourself
My life story is the story of everyone I’ve ever met.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Life Myself Story
She was with me. She did all of those things and so many more, things I would never tell anyone, and she never even loved me. Now that’s love.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Herself Love Myself Togetherness
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
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
The hardest part of writing is not to get the ideas but to remember, why it is important to get them.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Hard Ideas Important Remember Writing
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
Do you eat chicken because you are familiar with the scientific literature on them and have decided that their suffering doesn’t matter, or do you do it because it tastes good?
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Decision Eat Goodness Literature Suffering Taste Yourself
Every night before putting her to sleep, Yankel counts her ribs, as if one might have disappeared in the course of the day and become the seed and soil for some new companion to steal her away from him.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Appearance Himself Night Sleep Steal

Everything else happened – why not the things that could have?

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Everything else happened – why not the things that could have?

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