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You Can See The Most Beautiful Things From The Observation Deck Of The Empire State Building. I Read Somewhere That People On The Street Are Supposed To Look Like Ants, But That's Not True. They Look Like Little People. And The Cars Look Like Little Cars. And Even The Buildings Look Little. It's Like New York Is A Miniature Replica Of New York, Which Is Nice, Because You Can See What It's Really Like, Instead Of How It Feels When You're In The Middle Of It.

-Jonathan Safran Foer

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You Can See The

Jonathan Safran Foer

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You Can See The Most Beautiful Things From The Observation Deck Of The Empire State Building. I Read Somewhere That People On The Street Are Supposed To Look Like Ants, But That's Not True. They Look Like Little People. And The Cars Look Like Little Cars. And Even The Buildings Look Little. It's Like New York Is A Miniature Replica Of New York, Which Is Nice, Because You Can See What It's Really Like, Instead Of How It Feels When You're In The Middle Of It.

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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.

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.

I Am Not A Bad Person. I Am A Good Person Who Has Lived In A Bad Time." Alex's Grandfather..everything Is Illuminated

Abraham Responds "here I Am" When God Asks Him To Sacrifice His Son, And He Answers "here I Am" When His Son Asks Him About What Is Happening. It's A Paradoxical Moment. He Can't Be Fully Present For His God Or His Son.

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

I Spent My Life Learning To Feel Less.

Everything Is Illuminated

I Think After You Live It's Like Before You Lived.

Her 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 Her. But There Was No Release. Table Ivory Elephant Charm Rainbow Onion Hairdo Violence Melodrama Honey...none Of It Moved Her. She Addressed The World Honestly Searching For Something Deserving Of The Volumes Of Love She Knew She Had Within Her But To Each She Would Have To Say I Don't Love You.

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

I Try Not To Remember The Life That I Didn’t Want To Lose But Lost And Have To Remember

The Only Thing Worse Than Being Sad Is For Others To Know You Are Sad.

Everything Is Illuminated

People Who Want To Find A Place Of Rest, Want To Find An Integrated Personality, Sense Of Self, Want Fewer Fractures In Their Lives.

I Put My Hand On The Doorknob Because I Thought Maybe Her Hand Was On The Doorknob On The Other Side.

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.

To Feel Alone Is To Be Alone.

Everything Is Illuminated

Cher Marcel, Allô. I Am Oskar's Mom. I Have Thought About It A Ton, And I Have Decided That It Isn't Obvious Why Oskar Should Go To French Lessons, So He Will No Longer Be Going To Go See You On Sundays Like He Used To. I Want To Thank You Very Much For Everything You Have Taught Oskar, Particularly The Conditional Tense, Which Is Weird. Obviously, There's No Need To Call Me When Oskar Doesn't Come To His Lessons, Because I Already Know, Because This Was My Decision. Also, I Will Keep Sending You Checks, Because You Are A Nice Guy. Votre Ami Dévouée, Mademoiselle Schell.

Every Factory-farmed Animal Is, As A Practice, Treated In Ways That Would Be Illegal If It Were A Dog Or A Cat.

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.

You Will Remember When A Bird Crashed Through The Window And Fell To The Floor. You Will Remember, Those Of You Who Were There, How It Jerked Its Wings Before Dying, And Left A Spot Of Blood On The Floor After It Was Removed. But Who Among You Was First To Notice The Negative Bird It Left In The Window? Who First Saw The Shadow That The Bird Left Behind, The Shadow That Drew Blood From Any Finger That Dared To Trace It, The Shadow That Was Better Proof Of The Bird's Existence Than The Bird Ever Was?

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.

Life Is Precious, So I Ought To Spend My Days, You Know, Making Sandwiches For Homeless People And Tending To The Elderly In Hospice Care. Life Is Precious, So I Should Give Everything Away, Except That I Live In The World. And In The World, I Actually Have Needs And Wants, And I Value My Needs And Wants. And I Live In The World, And I Can't Just Go Make Sandwiches Every Day Because I Also Have To Take Kids To School. I Also Have To, You Know, Write Books Because That's My Livelihood.

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

I Felt, That Night, On That Stage, Under That Skull, Incredibly Close To Everything In The Universe, But Also Extremely Alone.

Something Having Been Done Just About Everywhere Just About Always Is No Kind Of Justification For Doing It Now.

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.

Animal Agriculture Makes A 40% Greater Contribution To Global Warming Than All Transportation In The World Combined; It Is The Number One Cause Of Climate Change.

I Tried The Key In All The Doors, Even Though He Said He Didn't Recognize It. It's Not That I Didn't Trust Him, Becuase I Did. It's That At The End Of My Search I Wanted To Be Able To Say: I Don't Know How I Could Have Tried Harder.

Am I Such A Bad Person For Dreaming Of A World That Ends When I Do? I Don't Mean The World Ending With Respect To Me, But Every Set Of Eyes Closing With Mine.

I Wanted To Cry But I Didn't, I Probably Should Have Cried, I Should Have Drowned Us There In The Room Ending Our Suffering.

(you Do Not Have To Be Shamed In My Closeness. Family Are The People Who Must Never Make You Feel Ashamed.) (you Are Wrong. Family Are The People Who Must Make You Feel Ashamed When You Are Deserving Of Shame.) (and You Are Deserving Of Shame?) (i Am. I Am Trying To Tell You.) 'we Were Stupid,' He Said, 'because We Believed In Things.' 'why Is This Stupid?' 'because There Are Not Things To Believe In.' (love?) (there Is No Love. Only The End Of Love.) (goodness?) (do Not Be A Fool.) (god?) (if God Exists, He Is Not To Be Believed In.)

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?

I Realized I Was On A Something Island. 'how Did I Get Here,' I Wondered, Surrounded By Nothing, "and How Can I Get Back?

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

To Remember My Values, I Need To Lose Certain Tastes And Find Other Handles For The Memories That They Once Helped Me Carry.

...and When Is Enough Proof Enough?

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

What Does It Remember Like?

Dogs Are Wonderful, And In Many Ways Unique. But They Are Remarkably Unremarkable In Their Intellectual And Experiential Capacities. Pigs Are Every Bit As Intelligent And Feeling, By Any Sensible Definition Of The Words. They Can't Hop Into The Back Of A Volvo, But They Can Fetch, Run And Play, Be Mischievous, And Reciprocate Affection. So Why Don't They Get To Curl Up By The Fire? Why Can't They At Least Be Spared Being Tossed On The Fire?

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

And Nothing Inspires As Much Shame As Being A Parent. Children Confront Us With Our Paradoxes And Hypocrisies, And We Are Exposed. You Need To Find An Answer For Every Why — Why Do We Do This? Why Don’t We Do That? — And Often There Isn’t A Good One. So You Say, Simply, Because. Or You Tell A Story That You Know Isn’t True. And Whether Or Not Your Face Reddens, You Blush. The Shame Of Parenthood — Which Is A Good Shame — Is That We Want Our Children To Be More Whole Than We Are, To Have Satisfactory Answers.

I Have No Need For The Past, I Thought, Like A Child. I Did Not Consider That The Past Might Have A Need For Me.

I Used To Think That Humor Was The Only Way To Appreciate How Wonderful And Terrible The World Is, To Celebrate How Big Life Is. But Now I Think The Opposite. Humor Is A Way Of Shrinking From That Wonderful And Terrible World.

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?

I Never Confused What I Had With What I Was.

Isn't It Strange How Upset People Get About A Few Dozen Baseball Players Taking Growth Hormones, When We're Doing What We're Doing To Our Food Animals And Feeding Them To Our Children?

I Want An Infinitely Blank Book And The Rest Of Time.

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