“...There are only so many times that you can utter 'It does not hurt' before it begins to hurt even more than the hurt. You become enlightened of the feeling of feeling hurt, which is worse, I am certain, than the existent hurt.”

Everything Is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer

“They exchanged notes, like children. My grandfather made his out of newspaper clippings and dropped them in her woven baskets, into which he knew only she would dare stick a hand. Meet me under the wooden bridge, and i will show you things you have never, ever seen. The 'M' was taken from the army that would take his mother's life: GERMAN FRONT ADVANCES ON SOVIET BORDER; the 'eet' from their approaching warships: NAZI FLEET DEFEATS FRENCH AT LESACS; the 'me' from the peninsula they were blue-eyeing: GERMANS SURROUND CRIMEA; the 'und' from too little, too late: AMERICAN WAR FUNDS REACH ENGLAND; the 'er' from the dog of dogs: HITLER RENDERS NONAGGRESSION PACT INOPERATIVE... and so on, and so on, each not a collage of love that could never be, and war that could.”

Everything Is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer

“This was the world in which she grew and he aged. They made for themselves a sanctuary from Trachimbrod, a habitat completely unlike the rest of the world. No hateful words were ever spoken, and no hands raised. More than that, no angry words were ever spoken, and nothing was denied. But more than that, no unloving words were ever spoken, and everything was held up as another small piece of proof that it can be this way, it doesn't have to be that way; if there is no love in the world, we will make a new world, and we will give it heavy walls, and we will furnish it with soft red interiors, from the inside out, and give it a knocker that resonates like a diamond falling to a jeweler's felt so that we should never hear it. Love me, because love doesn't exist, and I have tried everything that does.”

Everything Is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer

“Does it break my heart, of course, every moment of every day, into more pieces than my heart was made of, I never thought of myself as quiet, much less silent, I never thought about things at all, everything changed, the distance that wedged itself between me and my happiness wasn't the world, it wasn't the bombs and burning buildings, it was me, my thinking, the cancer of never letting go, is ignorance bliss, I don't know, but it's so painful to think, and tell me, what did thinking ever do for me, to what great place did thinking ever bring me? I think and think and think, I've thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it.”

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer

“I thought about all of the things that everyone ever says to each other, and how everyone is going to die, whether it's in a millisecond, or days, or months, or 76.5 years, if you were just born. 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.”

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer

“When I was a girl, my life was music that was always getting louder. Everything moved me. A dog following a stranger. That made me feel so much. A calendar that showed the wrong month. I could have cried over it. I did. Where the smoke from a chimney ended. How an overturned bottle rested at the edge of a table. I spent my life learning to feel less. Every day I felt less. Is that growing old? Or is it something worse?”

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer