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We Tried So Hard. We Were Always Trying To Help Each Other. But Not Because We Were Helpless. He Needed To Get Things For Me, Just As I Needed To Get Things For Him. It Gave Us Purpose. Sometimes I Would Ask Him For Something That I Did Not Even Want, Just To Let Him Get It For Me. We Spent Our Days Trying To Help Each Other Help Each Other. I Would Get His Slippers. He Would Make My Tea. I Would Turn Up The Heat So He Could Turn Up The Air Conditioner So I Could Turn Up The Heat.

-Jonathan Safran Foer

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We Tried So Hard.

Jonathan Safran Foer

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We Tried So Hard. We Were Always Trying To Help Each Other. But Not Because We Were Helpless. He Needed To Get Things For Me, Just As I Needed To Get Things For Him. It Gave Us Purpose. Sometimes I Would Ask Him For Something That I Did Not Even Want, Just To Let Him Get It For Me. We Spent Our Days Trying To Help Each Other Help Each Other. I Would Get His Slippers. He Would Make My Tea. I Would Turn Up The Heat So He Could Turn Up The Air Conditioner So I Could Turn Up The Heat.

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Why Do I Write? It's Not That I Want People To Think I Am Smart, Or Even That I Am A Good Writer. I Write Because I Want To End My Loneliness.

The Animals Are Those Things That God Likes But Doesn't Love.

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.

She Was With Me. She Did All Of Those Things And So Many More, Things I Would Never Tell Anyone, And She Never Even Loved Me. Now That’s Love.

Everything Is Illuminated

I Didn't Feel Empty. I Wished I'd Felt Empty. ... I Wanted To Be Empty Like An Overturned Pitcher. But I Was Full Like A Stone.

Time Was Passing Like A Hand Waving From A Train That I Wanted To Be On.

It Seems Entirely Possible To Me That Horrible Things Can Be Going On Without Us Becoming Horrible People.

We Tried So Hard. We Were Always Trying To Help Each Other. But Not Because We Were Helpless. He Needed To Get Things For Me, Just As I Needed To Get Things For Him. It Gave Us Purpose. Sometimes I Would Ask Him For Something That I Did Not Even Want, Just To Let Him Get It For Me. We Spent Our Days Trying To Help Each Other Help Each Other. I Would Get His Slippers. He Would Make My Tea. I Would Turn Up The Heat So He Could Turn Up The Air Conditioner So I Could Turn Up The Heat.

As I've Grown Older, I've Grown More Convinced There's Nothing That Shouldn't Be Talked About. If We Think We're Protecting Each Other, We're Not.

Food Is Not Just What We Put In Our Mouths To Fill Up; It Is Culture And Identity. Reason Plays Some Role In Our Decisions About Food, But It's Rarely Driving The Car.

Everybody Knows The Competing Identities Of People Who Have Kids.

I Wanted To Protect Him, Which I Was Sure I Could Do, Even If I Could Not Protect Myself.

I Often Think About How My Sons Will Come To Know About September 11th. Something Overheard? A Newspaper Image? In School? I Would Prefer That They Learn About It From My Wife And Me, In A Deliberate And Safe Way. But It's Hard To Imagine Ever Feeling Ready To Broach The Subject Without Some Impetus.

He Promised Us That Everything Would Be Okay. I Was A Child, But I Knew That Everything Would Not Be Okay. That Did Not Make My Father A Liar. It Made Him My Father.

The Images Of His Infinite Pasts And Infinite Futures Washed Over Him As He Waited, Paralyzed, In The Present.

Highs And Lows Make You Feel That Things Matter, But They're Nothing." "so What's Something?" "being Reliable Is Something. Being Good.

...he Enclosed Pieces Of String That He Used To Measure Out His Body--his Head, Thigh, Forearm, Finger, Neck, Everything. He Wanted Me To Sleep With Them Under My Pillow. He Said That When He Came Back, We Would Remeasure His Body Against The String As Proof That He Hadn't Changed.

Also, I Designed A Pretty Fascinating Bracelet, Where You Put A Rubber Band Around Your Favorite Book Of Poems For A Year, And Then You Take It Off And Wear It.

It Was Getting Hard To Keep All The Things I Didn't Know Inside Me.

Needless To Say, Jamming Deformed, Drugged, Overstressed Birds Together In A Filthy, Waste-coated Room Is Not Very Healthy. Beyond Deformities, Eye Damage, Blindness, Bacterial Infections Of Bones, Slipped Vertebrae, Paralysis, Internal Bleeding, Anemia, Slipped Tendons, Twisted Lower Legs And Necks, Respiratory Diseases, And Weakened Immune Systems Are Frequent And Long-standing Problems On Factory Farms.

I Can't Count The Times That Upon Telling Someone I Am Vegetarian, He Or She Responded By Pointing Out An Inconsistency In My Lifestyle Or Trying To Find A Flaw In An Argument I Never Made. (i Have Often Felt That My Vegetarianism Matters More To Such People Than It Does To Me.)

She Extended A Hand That I Didn't Know How To Take, So I Broke Its Fingers With My Silence.

Tomorrow Was Over The Horizon, And Would Take An Entire Day To Reach.

I Looked At Everyone And Wondered Where They Came From, And Who They Missed, And What They Were Sorry For.

Our Love Was The Affliction For Which Only Our Love Was The Cure.

They Learned To Hate Her Unknowability, Her Untouchability, The Collage Of Her.

In The End, Everyone Loses Everyone. There Was No Invention To Get Around That, And So I Felt, That Night, Like The Turtle That Everything Else In The Universe Was On Top Of.

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.

I Tried To Think About Other Things. I Tried To Invent Optimistic Inventions. But The Pessimistic Ones Were Extremely Loud.

Which, Then, Brings Us Closer To What We Want To Communicate: Saying What We Intend, Or Trying To Say The Opposite?

If It Weren't My Life, I Wouldn't Have Believed It.

Every Moment Before This One Depends On This One.

How Beautiful Is Forgetting! What Relief It Would Be For The World To Lose Some Of Its Contents.

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 Point Of Everything I Have Been Trying To Say. If I Were To Give A Bracelet To You, Now, I Would Measure Your Wrist Twice

Everything Is To Protect You. I Exist In Case You Need To Be Protected.

You Can Make Great Meals Without Meat That Are, Of Course, Much More Healthy For The Same Price, But It Takes A Process Of Reeducation, Just Because Americans Aren't Familiar With How To Cook Vegetables Anymore.

I Asked Her, "are You An Optimist Or A Pessimist?" She Looked At Her Watch And Said, "i'm Optimistic." "then I Have Some Bad News For You, Because Humans Are Going To Destroy Each Others As Soon As It Becomes Easy Enough To, Which Will Be Very Soon." "why Do Beautiful Songs Make You Sad?" "because They Aren't True." "never?" "nothing Is Beautiful And True." She Smiled, But In A Way That Wasn't Just Happy, And Said, "you Sound Just Like Dad.

If It Had And Answer, It Wouldn't Really Be Love, Would It?

The Philosopher Elaine Scarry Has Observed That "beauty Always Takes Place In The Particular." Cruelty, On The Other Hand, Prefers Abstraction.

We Spent Our Lives Making Livings.

Making A Living

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.

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.

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