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Everything else happened - why not the things that could have?

Jonathan Safran Foer

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Jonathan Safran Foer
Age: 47
Born: 1977
Born: February 21
Novelist
Writer
Washington
District of Columbia
Happened
Else
Everything
Things

More quotes by Jonathan Safran Foer

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I often think about how my sons will come to know about September 11th. Something overheard? A newspaper image? In school? I would prefer that they learn about it from my wife and me, in a deliberate and safe way. But it's hard to imagine ever feeling ready to broach the subject without some impetus.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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It's the tragedy of loving, you can't love anything more than something you miss.
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Nine out of ten significant people have to do with money or war!
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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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Grandfather informs me that is not possible.
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Oskar Schell: If the sun were to explode, you wouldn't even know about it for 8 minutes because thats how long it takes for light to travel to us. For eight minutes the world would still be bright and it would still feel warm. It was a year since my dad died and I could feel my eight minutes with him... were running out.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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I have no need for the past, I thought, like a child. I did not consider that the past might have a need for me.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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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.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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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?
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Everything is the way it is because everything was the way it was
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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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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Food is not rational. Food is culture, habit, and identity.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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I'm deeply curious about Jewish things. I've toyed around with the idea of going to rabbinical school.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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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
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It was terrible. All of the things we couldn't share. The room was filled with conversations we weren't having.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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We live in a world made up more of story than stuff. We are creatures of memory more than reminders, of love more than likes.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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I am always sad, I think. Perhaps this signifies that I am not sad at all, because sadness is something lower than your normal disposition, and I am always the same thing. Perhaps I am the only person in the world, then, who never becomes sad. Perhaps I am lucky.
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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Family are the people who must make you feel ashamed when you are deserving of shame.
Jonathan Safran Foer