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Jonathan Safran Foer

" What about a teakettle? What if the spout opened and closed when the steam came out, so it would become a mouth, and it could whistle pretty melodies, or do Shakespeare, or justcrack up with me? I could invent a teakettle that reads in Dad‚Äôs voice, so I could fall asleep, or maybe a set of kettles that sings the chorus of ‚ÄúYellow Submarine,‚Äù which is a song by the Beatles, who I love, because entomology is one of my raisons d‚Äô√™tre, which is a French expression that I know. Another good thing is that I could train my anus to talk when I farted. If I wanted to be extremely hilarious, I‚Äôd train it to say, ‚ÄúWasn‚Äôt me!‚Äù every time I made an incredibly bad fart. And if I ever made an incredibly bad fart in the Hall of Mirrors, which is in Versailles, which is outside of Paris, which is in France, obviously, my anus would say, ‚ÄúCe n‚Äô√©tais pas moi!‚ÄùWhat about little microphones? What if everyone swallowed them, and they played the sounds of our hearts through little speakers, which could be in the pouches of our overalls? When you skateboard down the street at night you could hear everyone's heartbeat, and they could hear yours, sort of like sonar. One weird thing is, I wonder if everyone's hearts would start to beat at the same time, like how women who live together have their menstrual periods at the same time, which I know about, but don't really want to know about. That would be so weird, except that the place in the hospital where babies are born would sound like a crystal chandelier in a houseboat, because the babies wouldn't have had time to match up their heartbeats yet. And at the finish line at the end of the New York City Marathon it would sound like war. "

Jonathan Safran Foer

Humor , Sounds

related quotes

" Memories are small prayers to God, if we believed in that sort of thing. "

Jonathan Safran Foer

Memory

" And so it was when anyone tried to speak: their minds would become tangled in remembrance. Words became floods of thought with no beginning or end, and would drown the speaker before he could reach the life raft of the point he was trying to make. It was impossible to remember what one meant, what, after all of the words, was intended. "

Jonathan Safran Foer

Memory

" It‚Äôs much easier to be cruel than one might think. "

Jonathan Safran Foer

Kindness , Cruelty

" What‚Äôs the kindest thing you almost did? Is your fear of insomnia stronger than your fear of what awoke you? Are bonsai cruel? Do you love what you love, or just the feeling? Your earliest memories: do you look through your young eyes, or look at your young self? Which feels worse: to know that there are people who do more with less talent, or that there are people with more talent? Do you walk on moving walkways? Should it make any difference that you knew it was wrong ÔøΩas you were doing it? Would you trade actual intelligence for the perception of being smarter? Why does it bother you when someone at the next table is having a conversation on a cell phone? How many years of your life would you trade for the greatest month of your life? What would you tell your father, if it were possible? Which is changing faster, your body, or your mind? Is it cruel to tell an old person his prognosis? Are you in any way angry at your phone? When you pass ÔøΩa storefront, do you look at what‚Äôs inside, look at your reflection, or neither? Is there anything you would die for if no one could ever know you died for it? If you could be assured that money wouldn‚Äôt make ÔøΩyou any small bit happier, would you still want more money? What has ÔøΩbeen irrevocably spoiled for you? If your deepest secret became public, ÔøΩwould you be forgiven? Is your best friend your kindest friend? Is it in any way cruel to give a dog a name? Is there anything you feel a need to confess? You know it‚Äôs a ‚Äúmurder of crows‚Äù and a ‚Äúwake of buzzards‚Äù but it‚Äôs a what of ravens, again? What is it about death that you‚Äôre ÔøΩafraid of? How does it make you feel to know that it‚Äôs an ‚Äúunkindness ÔøΩof ravens‚Äù? "

Jonathan Safran Foer

Anger

" There are more places you haven't heard of then you're heard of!' I loved that "

Jonathan Safran Foer

Travel , places

" It made me start to wonder if there were other people so lonely so close. I thought about ‚ÄúEleanor Rigby.‚Äù It‚Äôs true, where do they all come from? And where do they all belong? "

Jonathan Safran Foer

loneliness

" I brought the birdcages to the windows.I opened the windows, and opened the birdcages.I poured the fish down the drain.I took the dogs and cats downstairs and removed their collars.I released the insects onto the street.And the reptiles.And the mice.I told them, Go.All of you.Go.And they went.And they didn‚Äôt come back "

Jonathan Safran Foer

loneliness

" Deep down, the young are lonelier than the old.' I read that in a book somewhere and it's stuck in my head. Maybe it's true. Maybe it's not true. More likely, the young and the old are lonely in different ways, in their own ways... "

Jonathan Safran Foer

loneliness

" We are breeding creatures incapable of surviving in any place other than the most artificial settings. We have focused the awesome power of modern genetic knowledge to bring into being animals that suffer more. "

Jonathan Safran Foer

Humanism , Animals

" 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 ‚Äî small and large, crude and multifaceted ‚Äî that concern us. The word defines our gaze even more than what we are looking at. "

Jonathan Safran Foer

Suffering

" And how can you say I love you to someone you love? I rolled onto my side and fell asleep next to her. Here is the point of everything I have been trying to tell you, Oskar. It's always necessary. "

Jonathan Safran Foer

Love , Fate , Life

" I wanted to cry but I didn't, I probably should have cried, I should have drowned us there in the room ending our suffering. "

Jonathan Safran Foer

Sad

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