Jonathan Safran Foer Quotes

My work is always more emotional than I am. My characters say things to each other that I get accused of not being able to say to my girlfriend.

I never had a real conversation with my father.

Growing up, I never expressed myself to nobody. I never told nobody when something was wrong.

But I don't even think you hear me at all Under your medieval ceiling behind your biblical wall

That was one of the saddest things about people--their most important thoughts and feelings often went unspoken and barely understood.

I think maybe the most frustrating feeling in the world is to have something to say buy not know how to put it into words. To have lived through something but not be able to get it out of you before it festers.

The silence is the worst part of any fight, because it's made up of all the things we wish we could say, if only we had the guts.

If you're lucky like me, your relationship with your brother has resolved itself on the peaceful side of the fence and has stayed there. But if you're someone who's got a family that's all fractured and finding it hard to relate, that's a very sad place to be.

There are certain nights you and your image just aren't in the same bed.

Sometimes I think people get into trouble because they can't say what they want to.

People change and forget to tell each other.

Family quarrels are bitter things. They don't go according to any rules. They're not like aches or wounds, they're more like splits in the skin that won't heal because there's not enough material.

If you text someone, and you just get an emoticon back, it's over.

I've had it with you and your emotional constipation!

I prefer neurotic people. I like to hear rumblings beneath the surface.

I hardly said a word to my wife until I said 'yes' to divorce.

Supposedly I'm impossible to talk to. But it's honestly not me being difficult. Sometimes you just don't have a lot to say.

My words in her mind: cold polished stones sinking through a quagmire.

After a few years of marriage a man can look right at a woman without seeing her and a woman can see right through a man without looking at him.

I've done the thing where I stop being communicative, and I've been on the other side where the other person isn't communicating, and I become frustrated.

The trouble with anyone when they're unhappy or in a relationship they recognize is not working but don't know what to do about is that they can't see farther out than that. If the relationship is not working, if what was there isn't there anymore, you have to do something about it.

I will never be able to say what is in my heart because words fail us, because it is in our nature to protect, because there are times when what is public and what is private must be discerned.

I don't think there's ever a winner in a feud. It's about emotional pain and an inability to conquer the pain.

There's no way to know exactly what someone's dealing with, no matter how open you are. You're just never going to know everything.

I used to bottle up all of my emotions and never say anything. Even if something really made me mad, I'd be quiet.