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6da04f1
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She laughed enough to migrate an entire flock of birds. That was how she said yes
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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1c700cd
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because he had been waiting for someone to come back to him, so every time someone knocked on the door, he couldn't stop himself from hoping it might be that person, even though he knew he shouldn't hope.
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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857daa6
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Everything is the way it is because everything was the way it was. Sometimes I feel ensnared in this, as if no matter what I do, what will come has already been fixed.
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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30cf8d1
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is ignorance bliss, I don't know, but it's so painful to think, and tell me, what did thinking ever do for me, to what great place did thinking ever bring me? I think and think and think, I've thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it.
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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288cac8
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Even if I don't like what I am, I know what I am. My children like what they are, but they don't know what they are. So tell me which is worse.
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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8b71526
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The only thing worse than being sad is for others to know you are sad.
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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41e9c42
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We were quiet on the car ride home. I turned on the radio and found a station playing "Hey Jude." It was true, I didn't want to make it bad. I wanted to take the sad song and make it better. It's just that I didn't know how."
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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ac963b0
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Whether we change our lives or do nothing, we have responded. To do nothing is to do something.
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vegetarianism
vegetarian
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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f7ffda4
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Why I'm Not Where You Are
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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13835ea
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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?
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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228c5ca
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It's hard to say goodbye to the place you've lived. It can be as hard as saying goodbye to a person.
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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7dfe1d9
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It shouldn't be the consumer's responsibility to figure out what's cruel and what's kind, what's environmentally destructive and what's sustainable. Cruel and destructive food products should be illegal. We don't need the option of buying children's toys made with lead paint, or aerosols with chlorofluorocarbons, or medicines with unlabeled side effects. And we don't need the option of buying factory-farmed animals.
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sustainability
animal-rights
vegan
vegetarian
ecology
capitalism
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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dde5092
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Do you have any coffee?'...'It stunts my growth, and I'm afraid of death.
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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b002064
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It's a shame that we have to live, but it's a tragedy that we get to live only one life.
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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fdf660c
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Well, what I don't get is why do we exist? I don't mean how, but why.' I watched the fireflies of his thoughts orbit his head. He said, 'we exist because we exist. . .we could imagine all sorts of universes like this one, but this is the one that happened.
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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6e2ad92
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Darling, You asked me to write you a letter, so I am writing you a letter. I do not know why I am writing you this letter, or what this letter is supposed to be about, but I am writing it nonetheless, because I love you very much and trust that you have some good purpose for having me write this letter. I hope that one day you will have the experience of doing something you do not understand for someone you love. Your father
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letter
understand
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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f5e5a6d
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She is deranged, but so so playful.
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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200e2a3
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I shook my tambourine the whole time, because it helped me remember that even though I was going through different neighborhoods, I was still me.
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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ce94e41
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Try to live so that you can always tell the truth.
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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2f2ec43
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Anyway. I'm not allowed to watch TV, although I am allowed to rent documentaries that are approved for me, and I can read anything I want. My favorite book is A Brief History of Time, even though I haven't actually finished it, because the math is incredibly hard and Mom isn't good at helping me. One of my favorite parts is the beginning of the first chapter, where Stephen Hawking tells about a famous scientist who was giving a lecture abou..
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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9a3347c
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there are only some many times you can utter "It does not hurt" before it begins to hurt even more than the hurt."
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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0e6f400
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I was more alone than if I had been alone.
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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9a279b3
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She] always knew he was a fiction but believed in him anyway.
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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30251c0
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But he also knew that there is an inflationary aspect to love, and that should his mother, or Rose, or any of those who loved him find out about each other, they would not be able to help but feel of lesser value. He knew that also means, , and also, ,and also, . He knew that it is, by love's definition, impossible to love two people.
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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dc0e552
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Each day has been chained to the previous one. But the weeks have wings. Anyone who believes that a second is faster than a decade did not live my life.
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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fad845e
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Not responding is a response--we are equally responsible for what we don't do. In the case of animal slaughter, to throw your hands in the air is to wrap your fingers around a knife handle.
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responsibility
slaughter
meat
eating
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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6d2f3da
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I could not believe in a God that would challenge faith like this.
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faith
god
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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9a0ba1f
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Memory was supposed to fill the time, but it made time a hole to be filled. Each second was two hundred yards, to be walked, crawled. You couldn't see the next hour, it was so far in the distance. Tomorrow was over the horizon, and would take an entire day to reach.
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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c542e17
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Elsewhere the paper notes that vegetarians and vegans (including athletes) 'meet and exceed requirements' for protein. And, to render the whole we-should-worry-about-getting-enough-protein-and-therefore-eat-meat idea even more useless, other data suggests that excess animal protein intake is linked with osteoporosis, kidney disease, calcium stones in the urinary tract, and some cancers. Despite some persistent confusion, it is clear that ve..
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veganism
vegetarianism
meat
health
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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f631e43
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But more than that, no unloving words were ever spoken, and everything was held up as another small piece of proof that it can be this way, it doesn't have to be that way; if there is no love in the world, we will make a new world, and we will give it heavy walls, and we will furnish it with soft red interiors, from the inside out, and give it a knocker that resonates like a diamond falling to a jeweler's felt so that we should never hear i..
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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513913b
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Everything is the way it is because everything was the way it was
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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3a6758a
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And the joys I've felt have not always been joyous. I could have lived differently. When I was your age, my grandfather bought me a ruby bracelet. It as too big for me an would slide up and down my arm. It was almost a necklace. He later told me that he had asked the jeweler make that way. Its size was supposed to be a symbol of his love. More rubies, more love. But I could not wear it comfortably. I could not wear it at all. So here is the..
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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9b7b4c0
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He knew that I love you also means 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.
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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a6fbe6e
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The images of his infinite pasts and infinite futures washed over him as he waited, paralyzed, in the present.
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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ea31570
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Parents are always more knowledgeable than their children, and children are always smarter than their parents.
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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f4ee457
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Do you eat chicken because you are familiar with the scientific literature on them and have decided that their suffering doesn't matter, or do you do it because it tastes good?
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factory-farms
vegetarianism
chicken
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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454168a
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I will describe my eyes and then begin the story. My eyes are blue and resplendent. Now I will begin the story.
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humor
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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300b517
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Brod's life was a slow realization that the world was not for her, and that for whatever reason, she would never be happy and honest at the same time. She felt as if she were brimming, always producing and hoarding more love inside of her. But there was no release. Table, ivory, elephant charm, rainbow, onion, hairdo, mollusk, Shabbos, violence, cuticle, melodrama, ditch, honey, doily...None of it moved her. She addressed her world honestly..
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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e452c53
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Memory was supposed to fill the time, but it made time a hole to be filled.
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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5d7caa3
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Literature was the only religion her father practiced, when a book fell on the floor he kissed it, when he was done with a book he tried to give it away to someone who would love it.
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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5aabdb5
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only someone who'd never been an animal would put up a sign saying not to feed them....
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humor
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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eaef080
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No matter how much I feel, I'm not going to let it out. If I have to cry, I'm gonna cry on the inside. If I have to bleed, I'll bruise. If my heart starts going crazy, I'm not gonna tell everyone in the world about it. It doesn't help anything. It just makes everyone's life worse.
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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828b69e
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Since the world has changed so much, the same values don't lead to the same choices anymore.
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Jonathan Safran Foer |
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feed311
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Once you hear something, you can never return to the time before you heard it.
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Jonathan Safran Foer |