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I regret that it takes a life to learn how to live.

Jonathan Safran Foer

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Jonathan Safran Foer
Age: 47
Born: 1977
Born: February 21
Novelist
Writer
Washington
District of Columbia
Regret
Takes
Learn
Live
Life

More quotes by 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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The end of suffering does not justify the suffering, what a mess I am, I thought, what a fool, how foolish and narrow, how worthless, how pinched and pathetic, how helpless.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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Time was passing like a hand waving from a train that I wanted to be on.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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Part of living your life is an awareness of the opportunities that can be missed and an awareness that time moves in one direction.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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I watched the sheets breathe when she breathed, like how Dad used to say that trees inhale when people exhale, because I was too young to understand the truth about biological processes.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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While it is always possible to wake a person who's sleeping, no amount of noise will wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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We eat as sons and daughters, as families, as communities, as generations, as nations, and increasingly as a globe. We can't stop our eating from radiating influence even if we want to.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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I'm interested in the kind of religion that makes life harder. I'm not so interested in the comforting kind of religion.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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Chickens can do many things, but they cannot make sophisticated deals with humans.
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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I love you also means I love you more than anyone loves you, or has loved you, or will love you, and also, I love you in a way that no one loves you, or has loved you, or will love you, and also, I love you in a way that I love no one else, and never have loved anyone else, and never will love anyone else.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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....Worthy would-be worlds of words, whorls of working wonder.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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Words never mean what we want them to mean.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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Writing's funny, it's like walking down a hall in the dark looking for the light switch, and suddenly you find it, flip it on, and then you discover the hallway you passed through is papered with the novel you've written.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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My point is that there are a lot of forces, like the media and the general political rhetoric tells us we should have more. That we should do better than our parents and have a bigger house or a better car.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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Sometimes I can feel my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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Do you eat chicken because you are familiar with the scientific literature on them and have decided that their suffering doesn't matter, or do you do it because it tastes good?
Jonathan Safran Foer
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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
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It’s a rule that we never listen to sad music, we made that rule early on, songs are as sad as the listener, we hardly ever listen to music.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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And here I am, instead of there. I'm sitting in this library, thousands of miles from my life, writing another letter I know I won't be able to send, no matter how hard I try and how much I want to. How did that boy making love behind that shed become this man writing this letter at this table?
Jonathan Safran Foer