"I don’t think that there are any limits to how excellent we could make life seem."

Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated

"That’s all anyone wants from anyone else, not love itself but the knowledge that love is there, like new batteries in the flashlight in the emergency kit in the hall closet."

 Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

"Humans are the only animal that blushes, laughs, has religion, wages war, and kisses with lips. So in a way, the more you kiss with lips, the more human you are. And the more you wage war."

Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

"What 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 Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

"So many people enter and leave your life. Hundreds of thousands of people. You have to keep the door open so they can come in. But it also means you have to let them go."

Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

"She was a genius of sadness, immersing herself in it, separating its numerous strands, appreciating its subtle nuances. She was a prism through which sadness could be divided into its infinite spectrum."

Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated

"I spent my life learning to feel less. Is that growing old? Or is it something worse?"

Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

"Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living."

Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close