Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Jonathan Safran Foer
Age: 47
Born: 1977
Born: February 21
Novelist
Writer
Washington
District of Columbia
Dark
Halls
Funny
Passed
Light
Suddenly
Find
Discover
Hallway
Writing
Walking
Hallways
Like
Novel
Switch
Written
Flip
Looking
Hall

More quotes by Jonathan Safran Foer

Image
I never confused what I had with what I was.
Jonathan Safran Foer
Image
It was not the feeling of completeness I so needed, but the feeling of not being empty.
Jonathan Safran Foer
Image
I said, 'I need to know how he died.' He flipped back and pointed at, 'Why?' So I can stop inventing how he died. I'm always inventing.
Jonathan Safran Foer
Image
I regret that it takes a life to learn how to live.
Jonathan Safran Foer
Image
You have to do something bad to do something good.
Jonathan Safran Foer
Image
I could not believe in a God that would challenge faith like this.
Jonathan Safran Foer
Image
I shook my tambourine the whole time, because it helped me remember that even though I was going through different neighborhoods, I was still me.
Jonathan Safran Foer
Image
...he enclosed pieces of string that he used to measure out his body--his head, thigh, forearm, finger, neck, everything. He wanted me to sleep with them under my pillow. He said that when he came back, we would remeasure his body against the string as proof that he hadn't changed.
Jonathan Safran Foer
Image
You only get to keep what you refuse to let go of.
Jonathan Safran Foer
Image
If we were to one day encounter a form of life more powerful and intelligent than our own, and it regarded us as we regard fish, what would be our argument against being eaten?
Jonathan Safran Foer
Image
I missed you even when I was with you. That’s been my problem. I miss what I already have, and I surround myself with things that are missing.
Jonathan Safran Foer
Image
Kids are a great analogy. You want your kids to grow up, and you don't want your kids to grow up. You want your kids to become independent of you, but it's also a parent's worst nightmare: That they won't need you. It's like the real tragedy of parenting.
Jonathan Safran Foer
Image
Flea-Market vendors are frozen mid-haggle. Middle-aged women are frozen in the middle of their lives. The gavels of frozen judges are frozen between guilt and innocence. On the ground are the crystals of the frozen first breaths of babies, and those of the last gasps of the dying.
Jonathan Safran Foer
Image
You are the only one who has understood even a whisper of me, and I will tell you that I am the only person who has understood even a whisper of you.
Jonathan Safran Foer
Image
I've never particularly liked bankers.
Jonathan Safran Foer
Image
Sometimes I imagined stitching all of our little touches together. How many hundreds of thousands of fingers brushing against each other does it take to make love? Why does anyone ever make love?
Jonathan Safran Foer
Image
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
Image
Everything is the way it is because everything was the way it was. Sometimes I feel ensnared in this, as if no matter what I do, what will come has already been fixed.
Jonathan Safran Foer
Image
If we are not given the option to live without violence, we are given the choice to center our meals around harvest or slaughter, husbandry or war. We have chosen slaughter. We have chosen war. That's the truest version of our story of eating animals. Can we tell a new story?
Jonathan Safran Foer
Image
And yet and yet - the last secret of the tree of codes is that nothing can ever reach a definite conclusion. Nowhere as much as there do we feel possibilities shaken by the nearness of realization. The atmosphere becomes possibilities and we shall wander and make a thousand mistakes. We shall wander along yet not be able to understand.
Jonathan Safran Foer