Latest Jonathan Safran Foer Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• Of course food has an important cultural use in families, but there are things that have more important cultural uses in families, and broadening the conversation out simply from what's reasonable also allows in other things.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Important

  "Extremely Dead and Incredibly Gross". Interview With Kiera Butler, www.motherjones.com. November 25, 2009.

• I do think ordinariness is, in a way, the enemy, but not ordinariness as the opposite of flamboyance.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Thinking, Enemy, Ordinariness

  Source: www.npr.org

• Part of living your life is an awareness of the opportunities that can be missed and an awareness that time moves in one direction.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Moving, Opportunity, Live Your Life

  Source: www.npr.org

• Life is precious, so I ought to spend my days, you know, making sandwiches for homeless people and tending to the elderly in hospice care. Life is precious, so I should give everything away, except that I live in the world. And in the world, I actually have needs and wants, and I value my needs and wants. And I live in the world, and I can't just go make sandwiches every day because I also have to take kids to school. I also have to, you know, write books because that's my livelihood.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Book, School, Kids

  Source: www.npr.org

• Most of the times that I think about my relationship to Judaism, I not only accuse myself of a shallowness, but I feel certain that there's a shallowness there. That's not a bad thing, really.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Thinking, Judaism, Shallowness

  "Jonathan Safran Foer On Marriage, Religion And Universal Balances". "Fresh Air", www.npr.org. November 10, 2016.

• There's a really wonderful book called "Man Is Not Alone" by Abraham Joshua Heschel, which makes the case that everybody is religious. You know, we've just been sort of too vigilant about our terminology and our definitions and too precious about it. But there's nobody who is indifferent to the experience of standing in front of an ocean at night. There's nobody who is indifferent to the feeling of, you know, lying on your back and looking up at the night sky.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Religious, Lying, Book

  Source: www.npr.org

• You only get to keep what you refuse to let go of.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Letting Go

  "Jonathan Safran Foer On Marriage, Religion And Universal Balances". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. July 7, 2017.

• The way that I feel about my Jewish identity has been really radically changed by events in life. Like, becoming a writer is one. Having children is another. And getting older and watching, you know, my parents and grandparents get older has been another, the seasons of - being witness to the seasons of life and wanting to have some kind of infrastructure to deal with it, to cope with them. Ritual has become more important to me as I've gotten older. It's not always religious ritual, but it often borrows from Judaism.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Religious, Children, Grandparent

  "Jonathan Safran Foer On Marriage, Religion And Universal Balances". "Fresh Air" with David Bianculli, weaa.org. July 7, 2017.

• The dissolution of a family, global crisis creates the massive fracture, not only in the Middle East but between America and Israel, between Europe and Israel, between American Jews and Israeli Jews. The distances seem to be widening wherever you look.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Distance, Crisis, Jew

  Source: www.npr.org

• People who want to find a place of rest, want to find an integrated personality, sense of self, want fewer fractures in their lives.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  People, Personality, Integrated

  "Jonathan Safran Foer On Marriage, Religion And Universal Balances". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, weku.fm.

• September 11 had such a strong visual component, the most visually documented event in human history. Nothing's ever been seen by as many people as that was. Our experiences of the day, our memories of the day are just so tied up in images of buildings falling and bodies falling.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Strong, Memories, Fall

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• Art can be very political but that can't be the purpose of art, it can't be the driving force. It isn't with any of the books that I love, anyway.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Art, Book, Political

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• Just to be a functioning adult in the world, we develop all of these layers of protection. When we see homeless people, we don't cry, even though homeless people probably deserve our tears - you know, it's a horrible thing.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  People, Tears, World

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• You need to have a reader's sympathy in order to accomplish anything. It's like at a reading, I find it's better to read something funny than to read something tragic. It just goes over better because you have a finite amount of time with somebody. Of course, in a book, you have a lot of time. But you still do want to make a certain impression right when you begin.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Book, Reading, Order

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• Everybody knows the competing identities of people who have kids.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Kids, People, Identity

  Source: www.nydailynews.com

• It is unrealistic to think you can have an inflexible identity that never has to give or take or make compromises.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Thinking, Giving, Identity

  Source: www.nydailynews.com

• Abraham responds "Here I am" when God asks him to sacrifice his son, and he answers "Here I am" when his son asks him about what is happening. It's a paradoxical moment. He can't be fully present for his God or his son.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Son, Sacrifice, Here I Am

  Source: www.nydailynews.com

• My point is that there are a lot of forces, like the media and the general political rhetoric tells us we should have more. That we should do better than our parents and have a bigger house or a better car.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Media, Should Have, Car

  Source: www.nydailynews.com

• The American dream itself is declining.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Dream, American Dream

  Source: www.nydailynews.com

• People shouldn't be allowed to get married until it's too late to have kids.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Kids, People, Too Late

  Source: www.nydailynews.com

• Marriage is like a chess match is initiated and the board expands over time until it takes up all of a life.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Boards, Chess, Chess Match

  Source: www.nydailynews.com

• My impression is that staying together as a couple does not correspond to the challenges themselves, but whether the very idea of breaking up is an option on the table. If it is, then some people take it. If it's not, then they will keep working at it. You must know people who were terribly suited who make it work. And there are couples who seem perfectly suited that break up. It's a mystery to everyone.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Couple, Ideas, People

  Source: www.nydailynews.com

• The word vegetarian, I think, does a disservice because there are a lot of people who care but maybe don't care, or can't care in an ultimate way. If you think about environmentalism, nobody would ask, "Are you an environmentalist or not?" The question doesn't make any sense.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Thinking, People, Way

  "Extremely Dead and Incredibly Gross". Interview with Kiera Butler, www.motherjones.com. November 25, 2009.

• If people thought about food more like how we think about the environment, a lot of people would be eating differently and the whole system would look a lot different.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Thinking, People, Different

  "Extremely Dead and Incredibly Gross". Interview with Kiera Butler, www.motherjones.com. November 25, 2009.

• Ninety-eight percent of all the soy that's raised goes to livestock. So people make fun of vegetarians for being tofu eaters, but no one eats tofu like steak eaters, by a long shot. It's also funny that tofu is held up as what a vegetarian eats. I mean maybe I eat tofu once a month, but other than that, never. All of it, statistically speaking, is going to livestock.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Fun, Mean, Ninety Eight

  "Extremely Dead and Incredibly Gross". Interview with Kiera Butler, www.motherjones.com. November 25, 2009.