Jonathan Safran Foer Quotes

Letters are largely written to get things out of your system.

I started dealing with my emotional pain by writing. I always had been a writer, but just not songs. Saying things on paper that I would never, ever say, and saying things to myself, admitting things to myself, about myself and my personality, just putting it on paper, is how I deal with emotional pain.

Experiencing sadness and anger can make you feel more creative, and by being creative, you can get beyond your pain or negativity.

Grief is a process, not a state.

When you're threatened, or something hard hits you, acknowledge it, embrace it. Don't pretend that you didn't get hurt - hurt, cry, think about it. And then you let it go and try something else.

I'd gone through the ups and downs and curveballs that life throws at you. I found writing to be very therapeutic and it helped me with a lot of the stuff I was going through.

Everything I was feeling, all the hurt and the pain and the emotion I was going through, I put into my music.

Humor does not diminish the pain - it makes the space around it get bigger.

It's good to actually cry. Trust me, I've had a lot of practice over the years!

I write songs about stuff that I can't really get past personally - and then I write a song about it and I feel better.

People always ask me, 'Why do you only write about heartbreak?' I think I only write when I'm broken, so that's just what happens. It makes me feel better, but having some distance helps.

Saying things on paper that I would never, ever say, and saying things to myself, admitting things to myself, about myself and my personality, just putting it on paper, is how I deal with emotional pain.

Whenever I was trying to get over a boy, I would write him a really long, wrought letter - but never mail it.

It was as if I were writing letters to hold together the pieces of my crumbling life.

A self needed to spill out sometimes, a body should show evidence of what the hell went on inside it.

Whenever you are fed up with life, start writing: ink is the great cure for all human ills, as I have found out long ago.

When you can bring yourself to write about it one day, you will find it all less painful. It is a catharsis of sorts, but the process can be brutal. Don’t do it until you’re ready.

Writing isn't a source of pain. It's psychic chemotherapy. It reduces your psychological tumors and relieves your pain.

Crying is easy, like breathing- the more you hold it in, the more you let out.

Have you ever written a letter you knew you could never mail but you needed to write it anyway?

Well it's all right to cry. It helps a great deal sometimes.

I do my best to write my way through it. It helps the laughing, reflective part come quicker.

The thought, when written down, becomes less oppressive, but some thoughts are like a cancerous tumor: you express is, you excise it, and it grows back worse than before.

There's this whole idea that you've got the blues and you're going to write. Bullshit. When I feel really bad, all I want to do is sit in front of the TV with the remote control and check out.

Grief was like a terrible burden, but at least you could lay it down by the side of the road and walk away from it. Antonia had come only a few paces, but already she could turn and look back and not weep. It wasn't anything to do with forgetting. It was just accepting. Nothing was ever so bad once you had accepted it.