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We talked about nothing in particular, but it felt like we were talking about the most important things.

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
We are not long-term beings. Not heroes of romances in many volumes. For one gesture, for one word alone, we shall make the effort. We openly admit: our creations will be temporary. We shall have this as our aim: a gesture.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Admit Effort Goal Human Open Romance Temporary Time Volume
Sadness of not knowing enough words to [express what you mean].
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Enough Expression One Liner Sadness Word
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
It’s hard to say goodbye to the place you’ve lived. It can be as hard as saying goodbye to a person.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Hard Live Person Place Travel
So many people enter and leave your life! Hundreds of thousands of people! You have to keep the door open so they can come in! But it also means you have to let them go!
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Leaving Let Go Life People Yourself
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
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
Please be truthful, but also please be benevolent, please.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Compassionate Truth
This is love, she thought, isn’t it? When you notice someone’s absence and hate that absence more than anything? More, even, than you love his presence?
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Absence Hate Himself Love Presence
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
It’s the tragedy of loving, you can’t love anything more than something you miss.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Love Missing Tragedy Yourself
Of course food has an important cultural use in families, but there are things that have more important cultural uses in families, and broadening the conversation out simply from what’s reasonable also allows in other things.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Allow Conversation Culture Family Food Important Reason Simplicity
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.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Adult Cry Deserve Development Function Home Ourselves People World
We had everything to say to each other, but no ways to say it.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Each Other Talk Way Word
He was someone whom everyone admired and liked but whom nobody knew. He was like a book that you could feel good holding, that you could talk about without ever having read, that you could recommend.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Admire Book Feeling Reading Yourself

We talked about nothing in particular, but it felt like we were talking about the most important things.

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We talked about nothing in particular, but it felt like we were talking about the most important things.

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