“It was not the feeling of completeness I so needed, but the feeling of not being empty.”

— Jonathan Safran Foer , book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "It was not the feeling of completeness I so needed, but the feeling of not being empty." by Jonathan Safran Foer?

Jonathan Safran Foer 262

Novelist 1977

Related quotes

“people diminish me;
the longer I sit and listen to them
the more empty I feel but I don't get
the idea that they feel empty, I feel
that they enjoy the sound from their
mouths.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: Bone Palace Ballet

“All feelings are false and deceptive. […] Enlightenment is to be emptied (not empty) of feelings and thus at one with the pure sensation of divine being. And that pretty well sums up the whole spiritual process. But the spiritual process is so little understood that people don't realise their feelings are personal and false and have been misleading them all their life.”

Barry Long (1926–2003) Australian spiritual teacher and writer

Love is not a feeling ~ The Article (1995)
Context: All feelings are false and deceptive. [... ] Enlightenment is to be emptied (not empty) of feelings and thus at one with the pure sensation of divine being. And that pretty well sums up the whole spiritual process. But the spiritual process is so little understood that people don't realise their feelings are personal and false and have been misleading them all their life. If that's not true, why is humanity still unenlightened and basically unhappy after all this time - when enlightenment is the completely natural, sensational state of being every moment?

“The pain of being alone is completely out of this world, isn't it? I don't know why, but I understand your feelings so much, it actually hurts.”

Masashi Kishimoto (1974) Japanese manga artist

“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

“I feel like I am floating in plasma
I need a teacher or a lover
I need someone to risk being involved with me.
I am so vain
and I am so masochistic.
How can they coexist?”

Francesca Woodman (1958–1981) American photographer

“I feel the need to endanger myself every so often.”

Tim Daly (1956) American actor, director and producer

“I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in human beings.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

This I Believe (1951)
Context: I believe in human beings, but my faith is without sentimentality. I know that in environments of uncertainty, fear, and hunger, the human being is dwarfed and shaped without his being aware of it, just as the plant struggling under a stone does not know its own condition. Only when the stone is removed can it spring up freely into the light. But the power to spring up is inherent, and only death puts an end to it. I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in human beings.