Jonathan Safran Foer Quotes

If you ask me to play myself, I will not know what to do. I do not know who or what I am.

I'm not even sure who I really am sometimes.

For myself, I do not now know in any concrete human terms wherein my individuality consists. In my present human form of consciousness I simply cannot tell.

I look back at old photographs and videotapes, and I go, Who was I trying to be? Who was I doing this for?

I know it sounds pathetic, but I don't know who I am.

I know that I am what I am. But I am not sure what I am.

I could easily not be the person that people know.

Without a musket to raise, a barricade to storm, a flag to wave, the question hit me in the face like the cold air: 'Who am I?'

Who you are vs. who you wish you were: Who wins?

I think the whole idea of me was that I wasn't going to be but that I wanted to be, desperately.

I don't even know what my voice is to this day.

As we wrestle with questions of identity, we imitate those actions we think best fill an ambiguity we have within ourselves. And that goes for everyone; no one is free from this condition.

I'm always tripped up by the eternal who am I?

Sometimes he thinks that if he could only trace the path of his life carefully enough, everything would become clear. The ways that he screwed up would make sense. He closes his eyes tightly. His life wasn't always a mistake, he thinks, and he breathes uncertainly for awhile, trying to find a pathway into unconsciousness, into sleep.

Am I too fast, too facile? I do not know. I do not know myself sometimes, or how to measure and name and count out the grains that make me what I am.

Standing alone,eager to just believe,it's good enough to be what you really are,but in your heart,uncertainty forever lies,and you'll always be,somewhere on the outside.

Do you ever wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and think, something's not accurate?

I'm not sure what I am anymore... Sometimes I think I'm nothing but what other people have done to me―a big collection of brainwashing, surgeries, and cures... That, and all the mistakes I've made. All the people I've disappointed.

Should I be what I think? But I think about being so many things!

Look in the mirror. The face that pins you with its double gaze reveals a chastening secret.

We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are - that is the fact.

You have to know who you are, if you don't you have nightmares.

Earlier in my career, I was really tight, really together, and knew who I was and I was confident. I kind of feel in between now.

Like anybody, you have moments when you question yourself and you're insecure.

In my early 30s, I started to realise I was avoiding something on a personal level, but also as a writer. I was in denial about who I was, and was trying to be someone who I was not.