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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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Jonathan Safran Foer
Age: 47
Born: 1977
Born: February 21
Novelist
Writer
Washington
District of Columbia
Giving
Make
Inflexible
Never
Unrealistic
Think
Compromises
Thinking
Compromise
Identity
Give
Take
More quotes by Jonathan Safran Foer
Why does watching a dog be a dog fill one with happiness?
Jonathan Safran Foer
I like to see people reunited, I like to see people run to each other, I like the kissing and the crying, I like the impatience, the stories that the mouth can't tell fast enough, the ears that aren't big enough, the eyes that can't take in all of the change, I like the hugging, the bringing together, the end of missing someone.
Jonathan Safran Foer
The gift is for you...The surprise is for me.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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
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.
Jonathan Safran Foer
Nine out of ten significant people have to do with money or war!
Jonathan Safran Foer
Sometimes one simply wants to disappear.
Jonathan Safran Foer
Am I such a bad person for dreaming of a world that ends when I do? I don't mean the world ending with respect to me, but every set of eyes closing with mine.
Jonathan Safran Foer
Sadness of not knowing enough words to [express what you mean].
Jonathan Safran Foer
She maintained a careful balance by her window, never allowing the men to come too close, never allowing them to stray too far.
Jonathan Safran Foer
There are two kinds of sculptures. There's the kind that subtracts: Michelangelo starts with a block of marble and chips away. And then there is the kind that adds, building with clay, piling it on. The way I write novels is to keep piling on and piling on and piling on.
Jonathan Safran Foer
My test for writing is always, is this fun or does it feel like a job? Is it moving me? Or am I just fulfilling my own expectations - or even worse, somebody else's?
Jonathan Safran Foer
I felt suddenly shy. I was not used to shy. I was used to shame. Shyness is when you turn your head away from something you want. Shame is when you turn your head away from something you do not want.
Jonathan Safran Foer
She wanted more, more slang, more figures of speech, the bee's knees, the cats pajamas, horse of a different color, dog-tired, she wanted to talk like she was born here, like she never came from anywhere else
Jonathan Safran Foer
I didn't intend to write about totems or people searching. I tried not to constrain myself, and this is what I ended up with. There's this great Auden quote: I look at what I write so I can see what I think.
Jonathan Safran Foer
I started carrying blank books like this one around, which I would fill with all the things I couldn't say.
Jonathan Safran Foer
None of the ways people were talking about September 11 felt right to me. I don't buy into the way George W. Bush talks about it. I don't buy into the way the 9/11 commission talks about it. It isn't that I don't believe them. It's just that they're not the tellings for me.
Jonathan Safran Foer
Everyone performs bad actions... A bad person is someone who does not lament his bad actions.
Jonathan Safran Foer
We are not long-term beings. Not heroes of romances in many volumes. For one gesture, for one word alone, we shall make the effort. We openly admit: our creations will be temporary. We shall have this as our aim: a gesture.
Jonathan Safran Foer
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
