Jonathan Safran Foer
Jonathan Safran Foer
Jonathan Safran Foeris an American novelist. He is best known for his novels Everything Is Illuminated, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and for his non-fiction work Eating Animals. He teaches creative writing at New York University...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth21 February 1977
CountryUnited States of America
art writing successful
ART Art is that thing having to do only with itself—the product of a successful attempt to make a work of art. Unfortunately, there are no expamples of art, nor good reasons to think that it will ever exist. (Everything that has been made has been made with a purpose, teverything with an end exists outside of that thing, i.e., "I want to sell this", or "I want this to make me famous and loved", or "I want this to make me whole", or worse, "I want this to make others whole.") And yet we continue to write, paint, sculpt and compose. Is this foolish of us?
art
There's no being wrong in seeing something in art, only being disagreed with.
food longer obsessed obsession price sad sort
There's never been a culture that wasn't obsessed with food. The sort of sad thing is that our obsession is no longer with food, but with the price of food.
selective time
That's the nice thing about being a vegetarian. You don't have to be neurotic. Selective omnivores have to be neurotic. Personally, I don't have time for all that; I don't want to get into it.
Why wouldn't - how couldn't - an author care about how his or her books look?
art drawn forms funny
Literature has drawn a funny perimeter that other art forms haven't.
change eat inherently luxurious matter maybe position question whether wrong
Maybe one day the world will change, that we'll be in a luxurious position of being able to debate whether or not it's inherently wrong to eat animals, but the question doesn't matter right now.
conversation starts
What the world does not need is a Haggadah that pats itself on the back. It needs a Haggadah that gets out of the way, that starts a conversation and gets out of the way.
protecting shoot
When we talk about protecting our right to have guns, we are talking about protecting our right to shoot bullets. So what is it that's so important to shoot at?
excited larger picture time worth
It's not worth getting too excited about thinking about the larger picture. The larger picture doesn't come into focus for an awfully long time.
It's possible to make things that aren't just money-makers. Something wonderful for its own sake.
ask best
The best books are the ones that ask the most questions.
clear draw good hard life necessary
It's hard to draw clear lines between writing and life and I don't think it is necessary to or necessarily good to.
drama family felt hopefully human mind next transmit values
The purpose of the Seder to my mind is to inspire conversations with your family about the human drama and hopefully transmit values to the next generation. I've always felt like this could be better.