I feel too much. That's what's going on.' 'Do you think one can feel too much? Or just feel in the wrong ways?' 'My insides don't match up with my outsides.' 'Do anyone's insides and outsides match up?' 'I don't know. I'm only me.' 'Maybe that's what a person's personality is: the difference between the inside and outside.' 'But it's worse for me.' 'I wonder if everyone thinks it's worse for him.' 'Probably. But it really is worse for me.
Jonathan Safran FoerNo matter how much I feel, Iโm not going to let it out. If I have to cry, Iโm gonna cry on the inside. If I have to bleed, Iโll bruise. If my heart starts going crazy, Iโm not gonna tell everyone in the world about it. It doesnโt help anything. It just makes everyoneโs life worse.
Jonathan Safran FoerI used to think that humor was the only way to appreciate how wonderful and terrible the world is, to celebrate how big life is. But now I think the opposite. Humor is a way of shrinking from that wonderful and terrible world.
Jonathan Safran FoerLook, taste is clearly the crudest of our senses: this is scientifically, objectively factual. It is less nuanced. Eyesight is extraordinary - hearing, touch. I find people who devote their whole lives to taste a little strange.
Jonathan Safran FoerWhat about little microphones? What if everyone swallowed them, and they played the sounds of our hearts through a little speaker. [...] I wonder if everyone's hearts would start to beat at the same time.
Jonathan Safran FoerI took the world into me, rearranged it, and sent it back out as a question: "Do you like me?
Jonathan Safran FoerThink of the beginning of the story of the beginning of everything: Adam (without Eve and without divine guidance) names the animals. Continuing his work, we call stupid people bird-brained, cowardly people chickens, fools turkeys. Are these the best names we have to offer? If we can revise the notion of women coming from a rib, canโt we revise our categorizations of the animals that, draped with barbecue sauce, end up as the ribs on our dinner plates โ or for that matter, the KFC in our hands?
Jonathan Safran Foer