Quotes from book
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Name: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Author: Jonathan Safran Foer

Jonathan Safran Foer

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is a 2005 novel by Jonathan Safran Foer.

“My insides don't match up with my outsides. -Do anyone's inside and outsides match up? -I don't know. I'm only me. -Maybe that's what a person's personality is: the difference between the inside and the outside.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Oskar during a visit to his therapist, Dr. Fein
"Happiness, Happiness" (p. 201)
Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005)
Context: "I feel too much. That's what's going on." "Do you think one can feel too much? Or just feel the wrong ways? "My insides don't match up with my outsides." "Do anyone's inside and outsides match up?" "I don't know. I'm only me." "Maybe that's what a person's personality is: the difference between the inside and the outside." "But it's worse for me." "I wonder if everyone thinks it's worse for him." "Probably. But it really is worse for me."

“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 book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“I am sure people tell you this constantly but if you looked up 'incredibly beautiful' in the dictionary there would be a picture of you.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“It was terrible. All of the things we couldn't share. The room was filled with conversations we weren't having.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“I spent my life learning to feel less.
Every day I felt less.
Is that growing old? Or is it something worse?
You can not protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Oskar's grandmother to his grandfather after she told him of her pregnancy.
"My Feelings" (p. 180)
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005)

“Then I have some bad news for you, because humans are going to destroy each other as soon as it becomes easy enough to, which will be very soon.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“It was one of the best days of my life, a day during which I lived my life and didn't think about my life at all.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“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

“It was the first time I had ever made love. I wondered if he knew that. It felt like crying. I wondered, Why does anyone ever make love?”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“In the end, everyone loses everyone.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“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

“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 book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“It made me start to wonder if there were other people so lonely so close. I thought about “Eleanor Rigby.” It’s true, where do they all come from? And where do they all belong?”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“… people with nothing to declare carry the most.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“I don't mind if smiles come at my expense, I'm a small price to pay.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“Do you have any coffee?'…'It stunts my growth, and I'm afraid of death.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“I tried to think about other things. I tried to invent optimistic inventions. But the pessimistic ones were extremely loud.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“I flipped back through the pad of paper while I thought about what Stephen Hawking would do next.”

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)