Jonathan Safran Foer Quotes

I was 23 when I learned how to cook; I grew up around the same time. It was precisely then that Thanksgiving started to mean something more. Growing up, Christmas was always about me, and eventually you, when I finally started to enjoy the giving part. But Thanksgiving is always about us.

I've been around the track a lot. I've had the best of the years, and I don't want a single year back.

I have a very big family and a lot of friends, and buying presents is one of my favorite things to do.

I'd never want to go back to being in my twenties or thirties. I was lost and confused and uncomfortable in my own skin.

It's really easy to figure out why I love what I love, the holidays and food. I know the difference between having them and not having them.

To regret fully is to appreciate how high the stakes are in even the average human life; fully experienced, it turns our eyes, attentive and alert, to a future possibly lived better than our past.

I remember a specific moment, watching my grandmother hang the clothes on the line, and her saying to me, 'you are going to have to learn to do this,' and me being in that space of awareness and knowing that my life would not be the same as my grandmother's life.

I think I was always joyous, but I don't think I became very aware of positivity and its power until I became older. I always did it naturally, but then I lost it, and it forced me to find it again and appreciate it more.

I think that I am working to remind myself that it's still my life... you have to enjoy yourself.

I don't feel like a very nostalgic person. I think about the past much more clinically. When I look back and wonder, 'Why was I doing that? Was it a waste of time?' I don't beat myself up. Instead, I say, 'I'm so glad I did that, because now I really know what matters to me.'

I don't have a problem if somebody who has never met me wants to say that I wouldn't be where I was today without my family because you know what? They may be right.

I realized I am living an amazing, gorgeous, large life. I want to share this, and that includes the good, the bad, and the ugly.

I like gifts. I like to give them and I like to get them.

You can think you're living in the moment and you're thankful, but when somebody comes face to face with you and says, 'I just lost my child,' or 'I have months to live, and thank you...' I'm of course sad for them, but I'm thankful that I gave them a gift and they're giving me a gift.

I felt a lot of love through playing at BYU.

I think you learn to value the important things in life.

At some point I got sick of people calling me Bonzo junior. But now that I'm older and wiser, I'm just honored to be mentioned in the same breath.

Unfortunately for me, I was one of these people who took a long time to learn that the material at his feet was fine.

I really enjoy the shopping and going out and getting stuff for other people. I could really give a damn about getting gifts for myself, but I really enjoy giving gifts.

I do feel a commitment to this art form and to my father's teachings, and the older I am getting, the more I am feeling it.

I think that when I was first starting out, even after I was on 'Gilmore Girls,' when things were going pretty well, I was constantly focused on what's next, how can my career get bigger? I could've had a little more fun, and I think I could've had a little more gratitude for the job I did have.

I feel so grateful for the whole ride that I've been on.

Even on my most angry song, I'm also still saying, 'Thank you for helping me to learn.' I've always wanted to give voice to that complexity in our experience.

I could never say that I regret being given the gift of experience and love.

Mom, I love you. I love you, and our lives are gonna change. We don't have to struggle no more.