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

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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

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What is suffering? I'm not sure what it is, but I know that suffering is the name we give to the origin of all the sighs, screams, and groans — small and large, crude and multifaceted — that concern us. The word defines our gaze even more than what we are looking at.
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We talked about nothing in particular, but it felt like we were talking about the most important things.
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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?
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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.
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What were we spending so much time doing if not getting to know each other?
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Weeks passed like boats waiting to sail into the starless dawn, we were full of aimless endless darkness.
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One day you will do things for me that you hate. That is what it means to be family.
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It would be refreshing to have a politician try to defend guns without any reference to the Second Amendment, but on the merits of guns.
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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.
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Everything that's born has to die, which means our lives are like skyscrapers. The smoke rises at different speeds, but they're all on fire, and we're all trapped.
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Why are you leaving me? He wrote, I do not know how to live. I do not know either but I am trying. I do not know how to try. There were some things I wanted to tell him. But I knew they would hurt him. So i buried them and let them hurt me
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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.
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Or maybe what he fears is just the opposite: that nobody is looking that his death, like his life, is without purpose that there is neither greater good nor evil--only people living and dying because their bodies function and then do not that the universe is a rip.
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Words never mean what we want them to mean.
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Sadness of not knowing enough words to [express what you mean].
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I am willing to be annoying if that's what was necessary.
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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.
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I'm deeply curious about Jewish things. I've toyed around with the idea of going to rabbinical school.
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...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.
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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