When we lift our forks, we hang our hats somewhere. We set ourselves in one relationship or another to farmed animals, farm-workers, national economies, and global markets. Not making a decision--eating 'like everyone else'--is to make the easiest decision, a decision that is increasingly problematic.

— Jonathan Safran Foer

Whether we change our lives or do nothing, we have responded. To do nothing is to do something.

— Jonathan Safran Foer

Why are you leaving me? He wrote, I do not know how to live. I do not know either but I am trying. I do not know how to try. There were some 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

Why didn't I learn to treat everything like it was the last time? My greatest regret was how much I believed in the future.

— Jonathan Safran Foer

Why do beautiful songs make you sad?' 'Because they aren't true.' 'Never?' 'Nothing is beautiful and true.

— Jonathan Safran Foer

Why does watching a dog be a dog fill one with happiness?

— Jonathan Safran Foer

With writing, we have second chances.

— Jonathan Safran Foer

Writing's funny, it's like walking down a hall in the dark looking for the light switch, and suddenly you find it, flip it on, and then you discover the hallway you passed through is papered with the novel you've written.

— Jonathan Safran Foer

You are the only one who has understood even a whisper of me, and I will tell you that I am the only person who has understood even a whisper of you.

— Jonathan Safran Foer

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

— Jonathan Safran Foer