Jonathan Safran Foer Quotes

I am surprised by what people expect of me.

I am an on-and-off vegetarian. Sometimes on, mostly off. I think it is better to be a vegetarian but occasionally, the call of the hot dog overpowers my ethics.

People have their cultural reasons for eating meat, their traditional reasons, their likes and dislikes.

It is all very well for 2% of the population to live in a monastic state of meatlessness while everyone else gorges their way towards environmental meltdown or the nearest heart clinic. Vegetarianism is good for the willing minority, but not much use as a campaign tool.

I was born in California, raised a vegetarian, and love science fiction, so don't tell me how I need to be in order to fit your standards.

I think people are a little surprised sometimes at the level on which I actually talk. I don't talk like Caine. And every once in a while, somebody is surprised because I smoke and I drink. But I don't feel that is a contradiction.

I grew up in a little town in east Texas where it was really not on the table to question certain things like whether you should eat meat or not.

I can give you 150 philosophies about converting to vegetarianism, but you will only convert if your body feels right. I, for instance, feel fabulous; my body feels clean after becoming a vegetarian.

I used to think that people just hate vegans; I have since discovered that everybody hates anyone who abstains from anything.

I think that veganism is a totally great choice with incredible benefits, but I don't think it's reasonable to expect other people to be vegan or to expect everybody to be vegan. You can proselytize all you want, but being vegan is a pretty intense choice for a lot of people. You can encourage people to eat vegan more, certainly, and I personally eat vegan quite often.

Pride became this dogma which meant you couldn't criticize anything gay - if you were the least bit critical of gay culture or people or any gay person doing any gay thing, that was an insufficient display of pride. You were suffering from internalized homophobia. As opposed to external homophobia.

It would be easier for me to reject all established values, if I knew what they were.

People call you this or that. But I can't respond because then it seems like I'm defensive, you know, what does it matter, really?

People hasten to judge in order not to be judged themselves.

Vegetarianism functioned as a purification. When you eat animals you are more under the law of necessity. You are heavy, you gravitate more towards the earth. When you are a vegetarian you are light and you are more under the law of grace, under the law of power, and you start gravitating towards the sky.

My refusing to eat flesh occasioned an inconveniency, and I was frequently chid for my singularity.

Everybody sacrifices something in an attempt to reach what they think society wants.

If I asked people to live as I live, they would kill me.

People are always going to, you know, find something wrong with people who are not the exact same as them. That's just what it is. Black, white, short, tall, religions, whatever. People are bad.

A growing body of research suggests that many of the health problems associated with eating beef are really problems with corn-fed beef.

I am startled when people are themselves and are not my thoughts of them.

There’s no comparison. Veganism is the single most important thing that one can do today.

We have a problem with any labels that people try to hang on us, because all it does is drag you down.

Veganism is not about giving anything up or losing anything; it is about gaining the peace within yourself that comes from embracing nonviolence and refusing to participate in the exploitation of the vulnerable

I'm frequently introduced as a fashion designer, and I quickly say I'm not, and instantly people are incredibly disappointed and think that I'm some sort of charlatan who's been perpetuating this falsehood.