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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

Also, I designed a pretty fascinating bracelet, where you put a rubber band around your favorite book of poems for a year, and then you take it off and wear it.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Book Design Fascination Myself Poem Yourself
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
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
Shyness is when you turn your head away from something you want.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Head Shy Yourself
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
Please be truthful, but also please be benevolent, please.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Compassionate Truth
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
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
He promised us that everything would be okay. I was a child, but I knew that everything would not be okay. That did not make my father a liar. It made him my father.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Children Deep Family Father Lying Myself Parents Promise
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?
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Beginning Deserve Detail Friendship Leaving Myself Relationship Talk Yourself
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
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
We are lying to ourselves and to each other. Lying about what? I don’t care if we’re lying. I am a bad person. I don’t care. I don’t care what you are.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Bad Each Other Lying Yourself
We could imagine all sorts of universes unlike this one, but this is the one that happened.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Imagination Oneself Universe
I can forgive you for leaving, but not for coming back.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Forgiveness Leave Myself Return
I was of the opinion that the past is past, and like all that is not now it should remain buried along the side of our memories.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Bury Memories Opinion Ourselves Past Remain Side

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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