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Food Is Not Rational. Food Is Culture, Habit, And Identity.
-Jonathan Safran Foer
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Food Is Not Rational.

Jonathan Safran Foer
...
Food Is Not Rational. Food Is Culture, Habit, And Identity.

Understanding the Quote: "food is not rational. food is culture, habit, and identity...."

This quote by Jonathan Safran Foer reflects deeply on the theme of identity. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Identity, Culture, Habit, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Jonathan Safran Foer interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Jonathan Safran Foer

Jonathan Safran Foer is celebrated for insightful thoughts on identity and culture. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Identity
Culture
Habit
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Likes
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People
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Kissing
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Grateful
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Use
Antibiotics
Health Professionals
I Did Not Need To Know If He Could Love Me. I Needed To Know If He Could Need Me.
Needs
Needed
Knows
If Nothing Matters, There's Nothing To Save.
Matter
Nothing Matters
Eating Animals
Brod Discovered 613 Sadnesses, Each Perfectly Unique, Each A Singular Emotion, No More Similar To Any Other Sadness Than To Anger, Ecstasy, Guilt, Or Frustration. Mirror Sadness. Sadness Of Domesticated Birds. Sadness Of Being Sad In Front Of One's Parent. Humor Sadness. Sadness Of Love Without Release.
Sadness
Frustration
Unique
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.
Mean
Firefly
Orbit
We Know It (meat Eating) Is Indisputably The Number One Cause Of Global Warming. So What Does It Mean Exactly To Be An Environmentalist On A Daily Basis If You Are Not Thinking About The Number One Cause Of Global Warming Or One Of The Top Two Or Three Causes Of All Other Environmental Problems? Does It Mean You Are Necessarily Someone Who Doesn't Care About The Environment? Obviously Not, But It Might Mean You Have A Blind Spot For Something Big.
Mean
Thinking
Blind Spots
It's So Beautiful At This Hour. The Sun Is Low, The Shadows Are Long, The Air Is Cold And Clean. You Won't Be Awake For Another Five Hours, But I Can't Help Feeling That We're Sharing This Clear And Beautiful Morning.
Beautiful
Morning
Air
We Aren’t Exactly Emptying The Oceans; It’s More Like Clear-cutting A Forest With Thousands Of Species To Create Massive Fields With One Type Of Soybean.
Ocean
Cutting
Soybeans
Thanksgiving Is The Holiday That Encompasses All Others. All Of Them, From Martin Luther King Day To Arbor Day To Christmas To Valentine's Day, Are In One Way Or Another About Being Thankful.
Thanksgiving
Kings
Valentine
Perhaps In The Back Of Our Minds We Already Understand, Without All The Science I've Discussed, That Something Terribly Wrong Is Happening. Our Sustenance Now Comes From Misery. We Know That If Someone Offers To Show Us A Film On How Our Meat Is Produced, It Will Be A Horror Film. We Perhaps Know More Than We Care To Admit, Keeping It Down In The Dark Places Of Our Memory-- Disavowed. When We Eat Factory-farmed Meat We Live, Literally, On Tortured Flesh. Increasingly, That Tortured Flesh Is Becoming Our Own.
Memories
Dark
Science
Only Now Do I Understand The War Against Boredom, The Lost Cause Of Empty Hours, Of Empty Days And Nights.
War
Night
Boredom
The Factory Farm Has Succeeded By Divorcing People From Their Food, Eliminating Farmers, And Ruling Agriculture By Corporate Fiat.
Agriculture
People
Factories
The Books Could Be Completely Worthless, And Things We Don't Even Read Now Could Be Considered The Most Important Books.
Book
Important
Worthless
I Wasn’t Having Second Thoughts, But I Was Having Thoughts.
Second Thoughts
Suddenly Yankel Was Overcome With A Fear Of Dying, Stronger Than He Felt When His Parents Passed Of Natural Causes, Stronger Than When His Only Brother Was Killed In The Flour Mill Or When His Children Died, Stronger Even Than When He Was A Child And It First Occurred To Him That He Must Try To Understand What It Could Mean Not To Be Alive -- To Be Not In Darkness, Not In Unfeeling -- To Be Not Being, Not To Be.
Brother
Children
Mean
She Avoids Mirrors, And Lifts A Powerful Telescope To Find Herself.
Powerful
Mirrors
Telescopes
Time Was Passing Like A Hand Waving From A Train I Wanted To Be On. I Hope You Never Have To Think About Anything As Much As I Think About You.
Love
Pain
Thinking
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.
Thinking
Judaism
Shallowness
The Only Thing Worse Than Being Sad Is For Others To Know You Are Sad.
Being Sad
Knows
Everything Is Illuminated
I Felt It Very Moving To Feel His Touch, And To Remember That Hands Can Also Show Love.
Moving
Hands
Remember
We Are Being Very Nomadic With The Truth, Yes?
Truthfulness
Nomadic
I Felt Shame For Living In A Nation Of Unprecedented Prosperity-a Nation That Spends A Smaller Percentage Of Income On Food Than Any Other Civilization Has In Human History-but In The Name Of Affordability Treats The Animals It Eats With Cruelty So Extreme It Would Be Illegal If Inflicted On A Dog.
Dog
Animal
Civilization
Everything Else Happened - Why Not The Things That Could Have?
Why Not
Happened
One Of The Things That I Love About Writing Novels Is That It Really Doesn't Matter What Next Step You Take As Long As You're Pursuing Some Intuition Or Instinct. Of Course, Then, Intuitions Or Instincts Don't Make For Great Novels, But They Often Make For Good First Drafts.
Writing
Long
Intuition
Why I'm Not Where You Are ...
Where You Are
And I Wouldn't Say No To Something Sweet.
Sweet
Something Sweet
The American Dream Itself Is Declining.
Dream
American Dream
Parents Are Always More Knowledgeable Than Their Children, And Children Are Always Smarter Than Their Parents.
Children
Parent
Knowledgeable
It Seems Entirely Possible To Me That Horrible Things Can Be Going On Without Us Becoming Horrible People.
People
Becoming
Horrible
Why Is Taste, The Crudest Of Our Senses, Exempted From The Ethical Rules That Govern Our Other Senses?
Taste
Ethical
Animal Experimentation
I Knew That Our Time Together Was Almost Over, I Asked Her If She Liked Sports, She Asked Me If I Liked Chess, I Asked Her If She Liked Fallen Trees, She Went Home With Her Father, The Center Of Me Followed Her, But I Was Left With The Shell Of Me, I Needed To See Her Again, I Couldn't Explain My Need To Myself, And That's Why It Was Such A Beautiful Need, There's Nothing Wrong With Not Understanding Yourself.
Beautiful
Sports
Father
He Was Someone Whom Everyone Admired And Liked But Whom Nobody Knew. He Was Like A Book That You Could Feel Good Holding, That You Could Talk About Without Ever Having Read, That You Could Recommend.
Book
Feel Good
Feels
It's Rarely Talked About, But Hunting For Sport Is Just About As Vile As We Humans Get.
Sports
Hunting
Humans
I Felt Suddenly Shy. I Was Not Used To Shy. I Was Used To Shame. Shyness Is When You Turn Your Head Away From Something You Want. Shame Is When You Turn Your Head Away From Something You Do Not Want.
Shy
Want
Shame
You're Incredibly Beautiful,' I Told Her, Because She Was Fat, So I Thought It Would Be An Especially Nice Compliment, And Also Make Her Like Me Again, Even Though I Was Sexist.
Beautiful
Nice
Would Be
It Was Inevitable: Yankel Fell In Love With His Never-wife. He Would Wake From Sleep To Miss The Weight That Never Depressed The Bed Next To Him, Remember In Earnest The Weight Of Gestures She Never Made, Long For The Un-weight Of Her Un-arm Slung Over His Too-real Chest, Making His Widower's Rememberences That Much More Convincing And His Pain That Much More Real.
Pain
Real
Sleep
I First Became A Vegetarian When I Was Nine, In Response To An Argument Made By A Radical Babysitter. My Great Change - Which Lasted A Couple Of Weeks - Was Based On The Very Simple Instinct That It's Wrong To Kill Animals For Food.
Couple
Animal
Simple
We Shouldn't Be Intimidated By Someone Else's Idea Of Perfection If It Will Prevent Us From Taking Steps We Actively Want To Take.
Ideas
Perfection
Want
We Shared The Smile Of Recognizing Ourselves In Each Other, How Many Imposters Do I Have? Do We All Make The Same Mistakes, Or Has One Of Us Gotten It Right, Or Even Just A Bit Less Wrong, Am I The Imposter?
Mistake
Imposter
Recognizing
This Isn't Animal Experimentation, Where You An Imagine Some Proportionate Good At The Other End Of The Suffering. This Is What We Feel Like Eating. Tell Me Something: Why Is Taste, The Crudest Of Our Sense, Exempted From The Ethical Rules That Govern Our Other Sense? If You Stop And Think About It, It's Crazy. Why Doesn't A Horny Person Has As Strong A Claim To Raping An Animal As A Hungry One Does To Killing And Eating It?
Strong
Crazy
Animal
There Is Nothing Wrong With Compromising. Even If You Compromise Almost Everything.
Compromise
Almost There
Ifs
What? She Said Once To Herself, And Then Once Aloud, What? She Felt A Total Displacement, Like A Spinning Globe Brought To A Sudden Halt By The Light Touch Of A Finger. How Did She End Up Here, Like This? How Could There Have Been So Much - So Many Moments, So Many People And Things, So Many Razors And Pillows, Timepieces And Subtle Coffins - Without Her Being Aware? How Did Her Life Live Itself Without Her?
Light
People
Coffins
While It Is Always Possible To Wake A Person Who's Sleeping, No Amount Of Noise Will Wake A Person Who Is Pretending To Be Asleep.
Sleep
Noise
Pretending
Sometimes I Can Feel My Bones Straining Under The Weight Of All The Lives I'm Not Living.
Sometimes
Bones
Feels
Jed Perl Writes Precisely And Ecstatically. Antoine' S Alphabet Is A History And A Fairy Tale, A Work Of Criticism, And A Work Of Art.
Art
Writing
Criticism
Just Because You're An Atheist, That Doesn't Mean You Wouldn't Love For Things To Have Reasons For Why They Are.
Atheist
Mean
Reason
What Is Being Awake If Not Interpreting Our Dreams, Or Dreaming If Not Interpreting Our Wake?
Dream
Awake
Interpreting
Something Having Been Done Just About Everywhere Just About Always Is No Kind Of Justification For Doing It Now.
Done
Kind
Justification
I Felt, That Night, On That Stage, Under That Skull, Incredibly Close To Everything In The Universe, But Also Extremely Alone. I Wondered, For The First Time In My Life, If Life Was Worth All The Work It Took To Live. What Exactly Made It Worth It? What's So Horrible About Being Dead Forever, And Not Feeling Anything, And Not Even Dreaming? What's So Great About Feeling And Dreaming?
Dream
Night
Skulls
We Shared The Smile Of Recognizing Ourselves In Each Other.
Imposter
Recognizing
Chickens Can Do Many Things, But They Cannot Make Sophisticated Deals With Humans.
Sophisticated
Chickens
Deals
I'm Sorry For My Inability To Let Unimportant Things Go, For My Inability To Hold On To The Important Things.
Sorry
Unimportant Things
Inability
There Is An Overabundance Of Rational Reasons To Say No To Factory-farmed Meat: It Is The No. 1 Cause Of Global Warming, It Systematically Forces Tens Of Billions Of Animals To Suffer In Ways That Would Be Illegal If They Were Dogs, It Is A Decisive Factor In The Development Of Swine And Avian Flus, And So On.
Dog
Animal
Suffering
Everyone Is Always In Need Of Something That Another Person Can Give, Be It Undivided Attention, A Kind Word Or Deep Empathy. There Is No Better Use Of A Life Than To Be Attentive To Such Needs.
Giving
Empathy
Use
I'm A Novelist, I'm Not An Activist. I'm Not A Non-fiction Writer, I'm Not A Journalist. I'm Not A Foodie, I'm Not Even Really An Animal Person, Or An Environmentalist. I Did The Best I Could With This, But It's Not Who I Am.
Animal
Who I Am
Novelists
I Don't Mind If Smiles Come At My Expense, I'm A Small Price To Pay.
Mind
Pay
Pun
We Live In A World Made Up More Of Story Than Stuff. We Are Creatures Of Memory More Than Reminders, Of Love More Than Likes.
Memories
World
Stuff
We Need A Better Way To Talk About Eating Animals, A Way That Doesn't Ignore, Or Even Just Shruggingly Accept Things Like Habits, Cravings, Family And History, But Rather Incorporates Them Into The Conversation. The More They Are Allowed In, The More Strongly We Will Want To Follow Our Best Instincts.
Animal
Needs
Able
What If I Never Stop Inventing?
What If
Inventing
Ifs
This Brings Me Back To The Image Of Kafka Standing Before A Fish In The Berlin Aquarium, A Fish On Which His Gaze Fell In A Newly Found Peace After He Decided Not To Eat Animals. Kafka Recognized That Fish As A Member Of His Invisible Family- Not As His Equal, Of Course, But As Another Being That Was His Concern.
Animal
Aquariums
Berlin
The End Of The World Has Come Often, And Continues To Come.
World
End Of The World
Ends
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.
Song
Home
Car
Memories Are Small Prayers To God, If We Believed In That Sort Of Thing.
Prayer
Memories
Ifs
I Started Carrying Blank Books Like This One Around, Which I Would Fill With All The Things I Couldn't Say.
Book
Blank
In America Right Now, We Use Words Like 'smart' To Talk About Bombs. American Rhetoric Is Grounded In Ideas Of Capital-g Good, Capital-e Evil, And It's Very Clear Who Is On Which Side. But In A Book You Can Do Just The Opposite. You Can Use All Lower-case Words.
Smart
Book
Opposites
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.
Animal
Air
Hands
I Like To See People Reunited, I Like To See People Run To Each Other, I Like The Kissing And The Crying, I Like The Impatience, The Stories That The Mouth Can't Tell Fast Enough, The Ears That Aren't Big Enough, The Eyes That Can't Take In All Of The Change, I Like The Hugging, The Bringing Together, The End Of Missing Someone.
Running
Missing Someone
Eye
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