Jonathan Safran Foer Quotes

You have to be a brat in order to carve out your parameters, and you have to be a monster to anyone who gets in your way. But sometimes it's difficult to know when that's necessary and when you're just being a baby, throwing your rattle from the cage.

My strategy has always been to give people just enough of me, then pull back. That way, they'll want more.

I hate being pressured. I hate when someone gets in my personal area. That's why I do it to everybody else.

I've always found that you can control people better if you don't see too much of them.

We did not touch each other. We were both leaning over the abyss.

Let's not get too comfortable with each other.

Much of living is an attempt to preserve oneself by annexing and occupying others.

I'll do a deal with you McFarlane," he said. "You can exist. And you can even have coffee. But if you raise your voice or make any sudden movements, I shall die. And that'll show you." Seb shrugged in return, hiding how pleased he was pretty badly. "Fair enough.

I've always thought there are two ways of getting what you wanted in life.Forcing people to give it to you,or making them want to give it to you.

If you've got 'em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.

People may oppose you, but when they realize you can hurt them, they'll join your side.

I'm at my best when there's distance between me and a man.

The NBA is going to do what they want to do. They're going to do what's best for them; not what's best for us.

I'm not an intimate person, really.

Even when someone introduced the women as someone's daughter or wife, they maintained a distance. With the advent of selfies, people now want to click with all the touching, coming so close.

Nobody should feel like they can force themselves into your life how it suits them when it's toxic and unwanted.

I think I've preserved most of my private life, and I think that's still important for me, and that's still important for my family.

'No' is a dynamic that you've got to master before you can ever master 'yes.'

From the neighborhoods that we grew up in, we had to learn how to deal with people. How to keep certain people at a distance, how to cut people off completely.

When you're afraid, you look to amass power to defend yourself, not realizing that can also be corrupting.

Managers can sometimes hold players back for their own benefit.

She make me beg for it until she give it up

We're all torn between the desire for privacy and the fear of lonliness. We need each other and we need to get away from each other. We need proximity and distance, conversation and silence. We almost always get more of each than we want at any one time.

B.O.B. and I have a longtime understanding - when we're done with each other, we know exactly which one of us has been used, and it isn't me. Good night Gideon.

I have a boundary problem... I need to know when to give and when to back up. I'll help someone across the street and then into their homes and they'll start telling me all their problems... and it turns out they're insane and want to kill me. I've got to know when to stop!