There's nothing good about being certain about things. And I don't think there's any real talent in using language in a manipulative way, with phrases like "tax relief" or "Social Security reform." It's politically clever, but it's also completely disingenuous, and it's not something to aspire to.

Jonathan Safran Foer

We often use technology to save time, but increasingly, it either takes the saved time along with it, or makes the saved time less present, intimate and rich. I worry that the closer the world gets to our fingertips, the further it gets from our hearts.

Jonathan Safran Foer

technology worry heart

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

love romantic mean

You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.

Jonathan Safran Foer

sad being-happy happiness

She was a genius of sadness, immersing herself in it, separating its numerous strands, appreciating its subtle nuances. She was a prism through which sadness could be divided into its infinite spectrum.

Jonathan Safran Foer

sad lost-love grief

Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living.

Jonathan Safran Foer

i-hate-you weight life

I'm grateful for anything that reminds me of what's possible in this life. Books can do that. Films can do that. Music can do that. School can do that. It's so easy to allow one day to simply follow into the next, but every once in a while we encounter something that shows us that anything is possible, that dramatic change is possible, that something new can be made, that laughter can be shared.

Jonathan Safran Foer

laughter grateful book

Just how destructive does a culinary preference have to be before we decide to eat something else? If contributing to the suffering of billions of animals that live miserable lives and (quite often) die in horrific ways isn't motivating, what would be? If being the number one contributor to the most serious threat facing the planet (global warming) isn't enough, what is? And if you are tempted to put off these questions of conscience, to say not now, then when?

Jonathan Safran Foer

suffering numbers animal

There were things I wanted to tell him. But I knew they would hurt him. So I buried them, and let them hurt me.

Jonathan Safran Foer

buried hurt-me hurt

There's nothing wrong with not understanding yourself.

Jonathan Safran Foer

understanding-yourself understanding people

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

i-hate-you batteries love-is

It’s hard to say goodbye to the place you’ve lived. It can be as hard as saying goodbye to a person.

Jonathan Safran Foer

hard persons goodbye

Words are capable of making experience more vivid, and also of organizing it. They can scare us, and they can comfort us.

Jonathan Safran Foer

vivid scare comfort

I put my hand on him. Touching him has always been important to me, it was something I lived for. I never could explain why. Little, nothing touches, my fingers against his shoulder, the outsides of our thighs touching as we squeeled together on the bus. I couldnt explain it, but I needed it. Sometimes I imagined stiching all of our little touches together. How many hundreds of thousands of fingers brushing against each other does it take to make love?

Jonathan Safran Foer

touching making-love hands

I hope that one day you will have the experience of doing something you do not understand for someone you love.

Jonathan Safran Foer

someone-you-love one-day

So many people enter and leave your life! Hundreds of thousands of people! You have to keep the door open so they can come in! But it also means you have to let them go!

Jonathan Safran Foer

doors mean people

It was not the feeling of completeness I so needed, but the feeling of not being empty.

Jonathan Safran Foer

emptiness feelings life

We shared the smile of recognizing ourselves in each other, how many imposters do I have? Do we all make the same mistakes, or has one of us gotten it right, or even just a bit less wrong, am I the imposter?

Jonathan Safran Foer

imposter recognizing mistake

We can't plead ignorance, only indifference. Those alive today are the generations that came to know better. We have the burden and the opportunity of living in the moment when the critique of factory farming broke into the popular consciousness. We are the ones of whom it will be fairly asked, What did you do when you learned the truth about eating animals?

Jonathan Safran Foer

ignorance opportunity animal

I have so much to say to you. I want to begin at the beginning, because that is what you deserve. I want to tell you everything, without leaving out a single detail. But where is the beginning? And what is everything?

Jonathan Safran Foer

what-you-deserve leaving want

She laughed enough to migrate an entire flock of birds. That was how she said yes

Jonathan Safran Foer

flocks enough bird