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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.

-Jonathan Safran Foer

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You Can Make Great

Jonathan Safran Foer

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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.

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He Was Not Such A Special Person. He Loved To Read Very Much, And Also To Write. He Was A Poet, And He Exhibited Me Many Of His Poems. I Remember Many Of Them. They Were Silly, You Could Say, And About Love. He Was Always In His Room Writing Those Things, And Never With People. I Used To Tell Him, What Good Is All That Love Doing On Paper? I Said, Let Love Write On You For A Little. But He Was So Stubborn. Or Perhaps He Was Only Timid.

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...accepting The Compromise Of The Way We Have Been, The Way We Are, And The Way We Will Likely Be...may We Live Together In Unwavering Love And Good Health, Amen.

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Nothing Matters

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Maybe I'll Try To Be More Patient With Morons.

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What's So Horrible About Being Dead Forever, And Not Feeling Anything, And Not Even Dreaming? What's So Great About Feeling And Dreaming?

I Spent My Life Learning To Feel Less.

Everything Is Illuminated

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Getting To Know Each Other

Because It Was Starting To Get Dark, And Because The Streets Were Crowded, I Bumped Into A Googolplex People. Who Were They? Where Were They Going? What Were They Looking For? I Wanted To Hear Their Heartbeats, And I Wanted Them To Hear Mine.

Stories About Food Are Stories About Us-our History And Our Values.

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We Cracked Up Together, Which Was Necessary, Because She Loved Me Again.

I Thought, It's A Shame That We Have To Live, But It's A Tragedy That We Get To Live Only One Life, Because If I'd Had Two Lives, I Would Have Spent One Of Them With Her.

Mom Said, "his Spirit Is There," And That Made Me Really Angry. I Told Her, "dad Didn't Have A Spirit! He Had Cells!" "his Memory Is There." "his Memory Is Here," I Said, Pointing At My Head. "dad Had A Spirit," She Said, Like She Was Rewinding A Bit In Our Conversation. I Told Her, "he Had Cells, And Now They're On Rooftops, And In The River, And In The Lungs Of Millions Of People Around New York, Who Breathe Him Every Time They Speak!

It Made Me Start To Wonder If There Were Other People So Lonely So Close. I Thought About “eleanor Rigby.” It’s True, Where Do They All Come From? And Where Do They All Belong?

Nothing Is Beautiful And True.

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Can’t You Even Tell Me If I’m On The Right Track?" Buckminster Purred, And Dad Shrugged His Shoulders Again. "but If You Don’t Tell Me Anything, How Can I Ever Be Right?" He Circled Something In An Article And Said, "another Way Of Looking At It Would Be, How Could You Ever Be Wrong?

We Were Trying To Make Our Lives Easier, Trying, With All Our Rules, To Make Life Effortless. But A Friction Began To Arise Between Nothing And Something, In The Morning The Nothing Vase Cast A Something Shadow, Like The Memory Of Someone You've Lost, What Can You Say About That, At Night The Nothing Light Spilled From The Guest Room Spilled Under The Nothing Door And Stained The Something Hallway, There's Nothing To Say.

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.

When I Looked At You, My Life Made Sense. Even The Bad Things Made Sense. They Were Necessary To Make You Possible.

Books Are For Those Without Real Lives, He Thought. And They Are No Real Replacement.

I Wanted To Hit Him. I Wanted To Hold Him. I Wanted To Shout Myself Into His Ear.

Yesterday I Wanted To Turn Inside Out.

In The End, Everyone Loses Everyone.

Living On A Planet Of Fixed Size Requires Compromise, And While We Are The Only Party Capable Of Negotiating, We Are Not The Only Party At The Table. We've Never Claimed More, And We've Never Had Less.

Is There Really Anyone, Besides Rudy Giuliani, Who Prefers The New Times Square?

Or Perhaps A Widow Found Him And Took Him In: Brought Him An Easy Chair, Changed His Sweater Every Morning, Shaved His Face Until The Hair Stopped Growing, Took Him Faithfully To Bed With Her Every Night, Whispered Sweet Nothings Into What Was Left Of His Ear, Laughed With Him Over Black Coffee, Cried With Him Over Yellowing Pictures, Talked Greenly About Having Kids Of Her Own, Began To Miss Him Before She Became Sick, Left Him Everything In Her Will, Thought Of Only Him As She Died, Always Knew He Was Fiction But Believed In Him Anyway.

She Said, "do You Have More Things That You Need, Or More That You Don't Need?" I Said, "it Depends On What It Means To Need.

Sadness Of Not Knowing Enough Words To [express What You Mean].

This Is The Sixty-nine," I Told Him, Presenting The Magazine In Front Of Him. I Put My Fingers -- Two Of Them -- On The Action, So That He Would Not Overlook It. "why Is It Dubbed Sixty-nine?" He Asked, Because He Is A Person Hot On Fire With Curiosity. "it Was Invented In 1969. My Friend Gregory Knows A Friend Of The Nephew Of The Inventor." "what Did People Do Before 1969?" "merely Blowjobs And Masticating Box, But Never In Chorus.

Whether We're Talking About Fish Species, Pigs, Or Some Other Eaten Animal, Is Such Suffering The Most Important Thing In The World? Obviously Not. But That's Not The Question. Is It More Important That Sushi, Bacon, Or Chicken Nuggets? That's The Question.

I Felt It Very Moving To Feel His Touch, And To Remember That Hands Can Also Show Love.

It's The Tragedy Of Loving, You Can't Love Anything More Than Something You Miss.

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.

She Saw Through The Shell Of Me Into The Center Of Me

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.

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

It Will Never Be The Case That People Won't Eat Meat. I Think It Could Conceivably Be The Case One Day That People Eat Very Small Amounts Of It. That It's A Special Thing, Rather Than Reach For It Because It's Cheap Or Reach For It Because It's Convenient, That It Becomes Something Festive Or Something Celebratory, Once A Week, And That Could Actually Be Achieved On Small Farms If We Really Changed Our Habits.

I Wanted To Tell Her Everything, Maybe If I'd Been Able To, We Could Have Lived Differently, Maybe I'd Be There With You Now Instead Of Here. Maybe... If I'd Said, 'i'm So Afraid Of Losing Something I Love That I Refuse To Love Anything,' Maybe That Would Have Made The Impossible Possible. Maybe, But I Couldn't Do It, I Had Buried Too Much Too Deeply Inside Me. And Here I Am, Instead Of There.

Everything That's Born Has To Die, Which Means Our Lives Are Like Skyscrapers. The Smoke Rises At Different Speeds, But They're All On Fire, And We're All Trapped.

I Hope That One Day You Will Have The Experience Of Doing Something You Do Not Understand For Someone You Love.

Someone You Love

We Looked At Each Other Until It Felt Like Everything Would Burst Into Flames

My Point Is That There Are A Lot Of Forces, Like The Media And The General Political Rhetoric Tells Us We Should Have More. That We Should Do Better Than Our Parents And Have A Bigger House Or A Better Car.

She Maintained A Careful Balance By Her Window, Never Allowing The Men To Come Too Close, Never Allowing Them To Stray Too Far.

I Want To Talk About God In A Literary Way. But I Think I Would Have A Very Hard Time Praying To God.

...people With Nothing To Declare Carry The Most.

My Greatest Fear Is Feeling Like A Professional Novelist. Somebody Who Creates Characters, Who Sits Down And Has Pieces Of Paper Taped To The Wall - What's Going To Happen In This Scene, Or This Act. What I Like Is For It To Be A Much More Scary, Sloppy Reflection Of Who I Am.

We Are Lying To Ourselves And To Each Other. Lying About What? I Don't Care If We're Lying. I Am A Bad Person. I Don't Care. I Don't Care What You Are.

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.

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

It’s Hard To Say Goodbye To The Place You’ve Lived. It Can Be As Hard As Saying Goodbye To A Person.

The End Of The World Has Come Often, And Continues To Come.

End Of The World

Factory Farmers Talk About Their Desire To Feed The World. That's Not What They're Doing. They're Feeding The World With Really, Really Cheap Stuff.

It's Rarely Talked About, But Hunting For Sport Is Just About As Vile As We Humans Get.

Sadness Of Love Without Release.

Ninety-nine Percent Of All Land Animals Eaten Or Used To Produce Milk And Eggs In The United States Are Factory Farmed. So Although There Are Important Exceptions, To Speak About Eating Animals Today Is To Speak About Factory Farming.

She Was Not Crying Which Surprised Me Very Much But I Understand Now That She Had Found Places For Her Melancholy That Were Behind More Masks Than Only Her Eyes

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

Of Course Food Has An Important Cultural Use In Families, But There Are Things That Have More Important Cultural Uses In Families, And Broadening The Conversation Out Simply From What's Reasonable Also Allows In Other Things.

It Broke My Heart Into More Pieces Than My Heart Was Made Of, Why Can't People Say What They Mean At The Time?

I Wouldn't Want A Boy To Think I Was Pretty Unless He Was The Kind Of Boy Who Thought I Was Pretty.

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.

Be The Instrument Playing The Sound Of Your Life's Passing

...there Are Only Some Many Times You Can Utter "it Does Not Hurt" Before It Begins To Hurt Even More Than The Hurt.

I Always Write Out Of A Need To Read Something, Rather Than A Need To Write Something.

As Long As I Am Thinking, I Am Alive.

I Can Forgive You For Leaving, But Not For Coming Back.

She Said, 'believe It Or Not, I Used To Be Idealistic.' I Asked Her What 'idealistic' Meant. 'it Means You Live By What You Think Is Right.' 'you Don't Do That Anymore?' 'there Are Questions I Don't Ask Anymore.

I Have Made My Own Choice, Which Is Vegetarianism, But It's Not The Choice I'm Imposing On Anybody Else.

It Was Not The Feeling Of Completeness I So Needed, But The Feeling Of Not Being Empty.

I Kept Thinking How They Were All Names Of Dead People, And How Names Are Basically The Only Thing Dead People Keep.

August Has Passed, And Yet Summer Continues By Force To Grow Days. They Sprout Secretly Between The Chapters Of The Year, Covertly Included Between Its Pages.

I Know You Look Both Ways Before You Cross The Street, But I Want You To Look Both Ways A Second Time, Because I Told You To.

We Talked About Nothing In Particular, But It Felt Like We Were Talking About The Most Important Things.

Almost Always When I Told Someone I Was Writing A Book About "eating Animals", They Assumed, Even Without Knowing Anything About My Views, That It Was A Case For Vegetarianism. It's A Telling Assumption, One That Implies Not Only That A Thorough Inquiry Into Animal Agriculture Would Lead One Away From Eating Meat, But That Most People Already Know That To Be The Case.

Flea-market Vendors Are Frozen Mid-haggle. Middle-aged Women Are Frozen In The Middle Of Their Lives. The Gavels Of Frozen Judges Are Frozen Between Guilt And Innocence. On The Ground Are The Crystals Of The Frozen First Breaths Of Babies, And Those Of The Last Gasps Of The Dying.

Everything Is The Way It Is Because Everything Was The Way It Was

I Was Of The Opinion That The Past Is Past, And Like All That Is Not Now It Should Remain Buried Along The Side Of Our Memories.

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.

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

Hunting Will Never Feed Lots Of People; It Will Always Be A Hobby.

Few People Sufficiently Appreciate The Colossal Task Of Feeding A World Of Billions Of Omnivores Who Demand Meat With Their Potatoes.

I Flipped Back Through The Pad Of Paper While I Thought About What Stephen Hawking Would Do Next.

I Woke Up Once In The Middle Of The Night, And Buckminster's Paws Were On My Eyelids. He Must Have Been Feeling My Nightmares.

I'm A Vegetarian. You're A What? I Don't Eat Meat. How Can You Not Eat Meat? I Just Don't. He Says He Does Not Eat Meat. What? No Meat? No Meat. Steak? No... Chickens! No... And What About The Sausage? No, No Sausage, No Meat! He Says He Does Not Eat Any Meat. Not Even Sausage? I Know! What Is Wrong With Him? What Is Wrong With You? Nothing, I Just Don't Eat Meat!

There's Nothing Wrong With Not Understanding Yourself.

Understanding Yourself

We Could Imagine All Sorts Of Universes Unlike This One, But This Is The One That Happened.

There Are More Obese People In The World Than Starving People. As China And India Start To Develop Our Eating Habits - And Not By Accident But Because Agribusiness Is Going Over There And Imposing Our Habits On Them - If The Population Doesn't Increase At All, We'll Have To Raise Twice As Many Animals As We Do.

Some Make Their Worlds Without Knowing It. Their Universes Are Just Sesame Seeds And Three-day Weekends And Dial Tones And Skinned Knees And Physics And Driftwood And Emerald Earrings And Books Dropped In Bathtubs And Holes In Guitars And Plastic And Empathy And Hardwood And Heavy Water And High Black Stockings And The History Of The Vikings And Brass And Obsolescence And Burnt Hair And Collapsed Souffles And The Impossibility Of Not Falling In Love In An Art Museum With The Person Standing Next To You Looking At The Same Painting And All The Other Things That Just Happen And Are.

Falling In Love

It’s A Rule That We Never Listen To Sad Music, We Made That Rule Early On, Songs Are As Sad As The Listener, We Hardly Ever Listen To Music.

I'm Grateful For Anything That Reminds Me Of What's Possible In This Life. Books Can Do That. Films Can Do That. Music Can Do That. School Can Do That. It's So Easy To Allow One Day To Simply Follow Into The Next, But Every Once In A While We Encounter Something That Shows Us That Anything Is Possible, That Dramatic Change Is Possible, That Something New Can Be Made, That Laughter Can Be Shared.

Think Of The Beginning Of The Story Of The Beginning Of Everything: Adam (without Eve And Without Divine Guidance) Names The Animals. Continuing His Work, We Call Stupid People Bird-brained, Cowardly People Chickens, Fools Turkeys. Are These The Best Names We Have To Offer? If We Can Revise The Notion Of Women Coming From A Rib, Can’t We Revise Our Categorizations Of The Animals That, Draped With Barbecue Sauce, End Up As The Ribs On Our Dinner Plates — Or For That Matter, The Kfc In Our Hands?

Sadnesses Of The Intellect: Sadness Of Being Misunderstood [sic]; Humor Sadness; Sadness Of Love Wit[hou]t Release; Sadne[ss Of Be]ing Smart; Sadness Of Not Knowing Enough Words To [express What You Mean]; Sadness Of Having Options; Sadness Of Wanting Sadness; Sadness Of Confusion; Sadness Of Domes[tic]ated Birds; Sadness Of Fini[shi]ng A Book; Sadness Of Remembering; Sadness Of Forgetting; Anxiety Sadness.

We Are Being Very Nomadic With The Truth, Yes?

She Brushed Her Eyelashes Against His Chest.

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 Hardest Part Of Writing Is Not To Get The Ideas But To Remember, Why It Is Important To Get Them.

I Can Only Hold On To The Things I Want To Lose.

I'm Less Worried About Accomplishment - As Younger People Always Can't Help But Be - And More Concerned With Spending My Time Well, Spending Time With My Family, And Reading, Learning Things.

It Was The First Time I Had Ever Made Love. I Wondered If He Knew That. It Felt Like Crying. I Wondered, Why Does Anyone Ever Make Love?

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.

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.

The Only Way To Overcome Sadness Is To Consume It.

Only A Few Months Into Our Marriage," Writes The Grandfather, "we Started Marking Off Areas In The Apartment As 'nothing Places,' In Which One Could Be Assured Of Complete Privacy, We Agreed That We Never Would Look At The Marked-off Zones, That They Would Be Nonexistent Territories In The Apartment In Which One Could Temporarily Cease To Exist.

If We Communicated With Something Like Music, We Would Never Be Misunderstood, Because There Is Nothing In Music To Understand...... But Until We Find This New Way Of Speaking, Until We Can Find A Nonapproximate Vocabulary, Nonsense Words Are The Best Thing We've Got. Ifactifice Is One Such Word.

It Is Unrealistic To Think You Can Have An Inflexible Identity That Never Has To Give Or Take Or Make Compromises.

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