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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

This is my heart. You are touching it with your left hand. You are touching it with your left hand, not because you are left-handed, although you might be, but because I am holding it against my heart. What you are feeling is the beating of my heart. It is what keeps me alive.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Alive Feeling Hands Heart Touch Yourself
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.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Appearance Easy Eat Goodness Social Society Way
Thanksgiving is the holiday that encompasses all others. All of them, from Martin Luther King Day to Arbor Day to Christmas to Valentine’s Day, are in one way or another about being thankful.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Day Holiday Oneself Thankful
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
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
It can be challenge enough to have to eat with myself.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Challenge Eat Myself
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
She was a genius of sadness, immersing herself in it, separating its numerous strands, appreciating its subtle nuances. She was a prism through which sadness could be divided into its infinite spectrum.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Appreciation Division Genius Infinte Sadness Separate
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
We aren’t exactly emptying the oceans; it’s more like clear-cutting a forest with thousands of species to create massive fields with one type of soybean.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Empty Exact Forest Ocean Oneself Type
Please be truthful, but also please be benevolent, please.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Compassionate Truth
Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Bone Hear Live Myself Time Weight
Sadness of not knowing enough words to [express what you mean].
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Enough Expression One Liner Sadness Word
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
Feathers filled the small room. Our laughter kept the feathers in the air. I thought about birds. Could they fly is there wasn’t someone, somewhere, laughing?
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Laughter Myself Room Small
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.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Beginning Fall In Love Herself Ordinary Time
I tried the key in all the doors, even though he said he didn’t recognize it. It’s not that I didn’t trust him, becuase I did. It’s that at the end of my search I wanted to be able to say: I don’t know how I could have tried harder.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Hard Key Myself Trust Try
Isn’t it strange how upset people get about a few dozen baseball players taking growth hormones, when we’re doing what we’re doing to our food animals and feeding them to our children?
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Children Food Growth Ourselves People Strange Upset
One of the greatest opportunities to live our values-or betray them-lies in the food we put on our plates.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Greatness Live Opportunity Ourselves Value
Choosing leaf or flesh, factory farm or family farm, does not in itself change the world, but teaching ourselves, our children, our local communities, and our nation to choose conscience over ease can.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Change Choice Community Conscience Family Farm Local Nation Ourselves Word
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.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Deep Myself Need Philosophy
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
Not responding is a response–we are equally responsible for what we don’t do. In the case of animal slaughter, to throw your hands in the air is to wrap your fingers around a knife handle.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Equality Fingers Respond Responsibility Throw Yourself
I don’t think that there are any limits to how excellent we could make life seem.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Excellence Life Limitation Thinking
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
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.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Burn Cure Fire Love Ourselves Start
I could not believe in a God that would challenge faith like this.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Believe Challenge Faith God Myself

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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