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Jonathan Safran Foer Quotes
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Jonathan Safran Foer is an American novelist. He is best known for his novels Everything Is Illuminated , Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close , and for his non-fiction work Eating Animals . His most recent novel, Here I Am, was published in 2016. He teaches creative writing at New York University.

✵ 21. February 1977
Jonathan Safran Foer photo
Jonathan Safran Foer: 262 quotes52 likes

Jonathan Safran Foer Quotes

“How beautiful is forgetting! What relief it would be for the world to lose some of its contents.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Tree of Codes

Source: Tree of Codes

“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 book Tree of Codes

Source: Tree of Codes

“I thought for a minute, and then I got heavy, heavy boots.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“We shared the smile of recognizing ourselves in each other, how many imposters do I have? Do we all make the same mistakes, or has one of us gotten it right, or even just a bit less wrong, am I the imposter?”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“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 book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

“She maintained a careful balance by her window, never allowing the men to come too close, never allowing them to stray too far.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

“You can call your turkey organic and torture it daily.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Eating Animals

Source: Eating Animals

“That’s all anyone wants from anyone else, not love itself but the knowledge that love is there.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“Memories are small prayers to God, if we believed in that sort of thing.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

“People around the world were moving from one place to another. No one was staying.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“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 book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“Everything I did, I did because I thought it was the correct thing to do… I am not a hero, it is true… But I am not a bad person, either.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

“I didn't feel empty. I wished I'd felt empty…. I wanted to be empty like an overturned pitcher. But I was full like a stone.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“In my family, Father is the world champion at ending conversations.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

“I wanted so much to have a life. Even just once, even for a second.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“She wanted nothing more than someone to miss, to touch, with whom to speak like a child, with whom to be a child.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

“She repeats things until they are true, or until she can't tell whether they are true or not. She has become an expert at confusing what is with what was with what should be with what could be.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

“You only get to keep what you refuse to let go of.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Here I Am

Source: Here I Am

“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 book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

“What do babies dream of? She must be dreaming of the before-life, just as I dream of the afterlife.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

“One of the greatest opportunities to live our values-or betray them-lies in the food we put on our plates.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Eating Animals

Source: Eating Animals

“I saw Herschel and he saw me and we stood next to each other because that is what friends do in the presence of evil or love.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

“I am not a bad person. I am a good person who has lived in a bad time."
Alex's grandfather.. Everything is Illuminated”

Jonathan Safran Foer

“I zipped myself all the way into the sleeping bag of myself, not because I was hurt, and not because I had broken something, but because they were cracking up.”

Jonathan Safran Foer

“… and when is enough proof enough?”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

“Well, let me leave it at this: if God does exist, He would have a great deal be sad about. And if He doesn’t exist, then that too would make Him quite sad, I imagine. So to answer your question, God must be sad.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

“We had everything to say to each other, but no ways to say it.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Variant: We had everything to say to each other, but no ways to say it
Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“Things were happening around us, but nothing was happening between us.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“And how can you say I love you to someone you love? I rolled onto my side and fell asleep next to her. Here is the point of everything I have been trying to tell you, Oskar. It's always necessary.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Oskar's grandmother
"My Feelings" (p. 314)
Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005)
Context: I said, I want to tell you something She said, you can tell me tomorrow I had never told her how much I loved her. She was my sister. We slept in the same bed. There was never a right time to say it. It was always unnecessary. I thought about waking her. But it was unnecessary. There would be other nights. And how can you say I love you to someone you love? I rolled onto my side and fell asleep next to her. Here is the point of everything I have been trying to tell you, Oskar. It's always necessary. I love you. Grandma.

“What if I never stop inventing?”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“They reciprocated the great and saving lie--that our love for things is greater than our lover for our love for things--willfully playing the parts they wrote for themselves, willfully creating and believing fictions necessary for life.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

“We looked at each other until it felt like everything would burst into flames”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“Everyone performs bad actions… A bad person is someone who does not lament his bad actions.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

“Isn't it so weird how the number of dead people is increasing even though the Earth stays the same size, so that one day there isn't going to be room to bury anyone anymore?”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“And also, there are so many times when you need to make a quick escape, but humans don't have their own wings, or not yet, anyway, so what about a birdseed shirt?”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“That is what death is like. It doesn't matter what uniforms the soldiers are wearing. It doesn't matter how good the weapons are. I thought if everyone could see what I saw, we would never have war anymore.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005)
Context: She died in my arms saying, "I don't want to die." That is what death is like. It doesn't matter what uniforms the soldiers are wearing. It doesn't matter how good the weapons are. I thought if everyone could see what I saw, we could never have war anymore. (p. 189)

“It would be possible, in theory, for life and art to be reversed.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

“She was a genius of sadness, immersing herself in it, separating its numerous strands, appreciating its subtle nuances.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

“Love… is the immovability of truth.”

Jonathan Safran Foer

“Chickens can do many things, but they cannot make sophisticated deals with humans.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Eating Animals

Source: Eating Animals

“Your dad didn't die, so I won't be able to explain it to you.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close