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You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.

Jonathan Safran Foer

I do think ordinariness is, in a way, the enemy, but not ordinariness as the opposite of flamboyance.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Enemy Myself Ordinary Thinking Way
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
You are the only one who has understood even a whisper of me, and I will tell you that I am the only person who has understood even a whisper of you.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Person Understand Whisper 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
It was not the feeling of completeness I so needed, but the feeling of not being empty.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Complete Empty Feeling Myself Need
One hundred years of joy can be erased in one second.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Erase Happiness Oneself Pain
You can call your turkey organic and torture it daily.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Call Organic 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
Why are you leaving me? He wrote, I do not know how to live. I do not know either but I am trying. I do not know how to try. There were some things I wanted to tell him. But I knew they would hurt him. So i buried them and let them hurt me
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Break Up Bury Himself Leaving Live Myself Try Writing
Being with him made my brain quiet. I didn’t have to invent a thing.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Brain Invention Myself Quiet
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
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
You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Happiness Philosophy Protect Sadness Yourself
Why didn’t I learn to treat everything like it was the last time. My greatest regret was how much I believed in the future.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Believe Future Greatness Learning Time Treat
In truth I was manufacturing a brick wall of shits.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Manufacture Myself Truth Wall
Every moment before this one depends on this one.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Depend Moments Oneself
Is that growing old? Or is it something worse?
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Grow Up Worst
I think and think and think, I‘ve thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Happiness Myself Thinking Time
She wanted more, more slang, more figures of speech, the bee’s knees, the cats pajamas, horse of a different color, dog-tired, she wanted to talk like she was born here, like she never came from anywhere else
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Animal Born Color Different Herself
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
Highs and lows make you feel that things matter, but they’re nothing.” “So what’s something?” “Being reliable is something. Being good.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Feeling Goodness Reliable Trust
Food for her is not food, it is terror, dignity, gratitude, vengeance, joyfulness, humiliation, religion, history, and, of course, love. As if the fruit she always offered us were picked from the destroyed brances of out family tree.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Family Food Herself Offering Terror Tree
Feeding my children is not like feeding myself: it matters more.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Children Feed Myself Worth
Sometimes people who seem good end up being not as good as you might have hoped, you know?
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Goodness Hope People Time Yourself
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
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
I can forgive you for leaving, but not for coming back.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Forgiveness Leave Myself Return

You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.

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You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.

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