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As a writer, putting words on the page is how I pay attention.

Jonathan Safran Foer

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Jonathan Safran Foer
Age: 47
Born: 1977
Born: February 21
Novelist
Writer
Washington
District of Columbia
Page
Putting
Pages
Pay
Writer
Attention
Words

More quotes by Jonathan Safran Foer

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When I heard your organization was recording testimonies, I knew I had to come. 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 would never have war anymore.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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Why I'm not where you are ...
Jonathan Safran Foer
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Whether we're talking about fish species, pigs, or some other eaten animal, is such suffering the most important thing in the world? Obviously not. But that's not the question. Is it more important that sushi, bacon, or chicken nuggets? That's the question.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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This brings me back to the image of Kafka standing before a fish in the Berlin aquarium, a fish on which his gaze fell in a newly found peace after he decided not to eat animals. Kafka recognized that fish as a member of his invisible family- not as his equal, of course, but as another being that was his concern.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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September 11 had such a strong visual component, the most visually documented event in human history. Nothing's ever been seen by as many people as that was. Our experiences of the day, our memories of the day are just so tied up in images of buildings falling and bodies falling.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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Not responding is a response--we are equally responsible for what we don't do. In the case of animal slaughter, to throw your hands in the air is to wrap your fingers around a knife handle.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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Well, what I don't get is why do we exist? I don't mean how, but why.' I watched the fireflies of his thoughts orbit his head. He said, 'we exist because we exist. . .we could imagine all sorts of universes like this one, but this is the one that happened.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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To remember my values, I need to lose certain tastes and find other handles for the memories that they once helped me carry.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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It is unrealistic to think you can have an inflexible identity that never has to give or take or make compromises.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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Our love was the affliction for which only our love was the cure.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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Is there really anyone, besides Rudy Giuliani, who prefers the new Times Square?
Jonathan Safran Foer
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She wants to know if I love her, that's all anyone wants from anyone else, not love itself but the knowledge that love is there, like new batteries in the flashlight in the emergency kit in the hall closet.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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We shouldn't be intimidated by someone else's idea of perfection if it will prevent us from taking steps we actively want to take.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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I want an infinitely blank book and the rest of time.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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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
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Only someone who'd never been an animal would put up a sign saying not to feed them.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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...people with nothing to declare carry the most.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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She said, Do you have more things that you need, or more that you don't need? I said, It depends on what it means to need.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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All really great artists, Jackson Pollack, John Cage, Beckett or Joyce - you are never indifferent to them.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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She extended a hand that I didn't know how to take, so I broke its fingers with my silence.
Jonathan Safran Foer