Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

by Jonathan Safran Foer

laughed, together and separately, out loud and silently, we were determined to ignore whatever needed to be ignored, to build a new world from nothing if nothing in our world could be salvaged, it was one of the best days of my life, a day during which I lived my life and didn’t think about my life at all.

I started inventing things, and then I couldn’t stop, like beavers, which I know about. People think they cut down trees so they can build dams, but in reality it’s because their teeth never stop growing, and if they didn’t constantly file them down by cutting through all of those trees, their teeth would start to grow into their own faces, which would kill them. That’s how my brain was.

Buckminster curled up next to me, and I conjugated for a while so I wouldn’t have to think about things.

I thought, it’s a shame that we have to live, but it’s a tragedy that we get to live only one life, because if I’d had two lives, I would have spent one of them with her. I would have stayed in the apartment with her, torn the blueprint from the door, held her on the bed, said, “I want two rolls,” sang, “Start spreading the news,” laughed, “Ha ha ha!” cried, “Help!” I would have spent that life among the living.

So many people enter and leave your life! Hundreds of thousands of people! You have to keep the door open so they can come in! But it also means you have to let them go!”

We were not rich, but there was nothing we wanted.

I regret that it takes a life to learn how to live, Oskar. Because if I were able to live my life again, I would do things differently.

“What do you think is going on?” “I feel too much. That’s what’s going on.” “Do you think one can feel too much? Or just feel in the wrong ways?” “My insides don’t match up with my out-sides.” “Do anyone’s insides and outsides match up?” “I don’t know. I’m only me.” “Maybe that’s what a person’s personality is: the difference between the inside and outside.” “But it’s worse for me.” “I wonder if everyone thinks it’s worse for him.” “Probably. But it really is worse for me.”

“Hey Jude.” It was true, I didn’t want to make it bad. I wanted to take the sad song and make it better. It’s just that I didn’t know how.

Time was passing like a hand waving from a train that I wanted to be on.

When I looked at you, my life made sense. Even the bad things made sense. They were necessary to make you possible.

I tried to think about other things. I tried to invent optimistic inventions. But the pessimistic ones were extremely loud.

Everything that’s born has to die, which means our lives are like skyscrapers. The smoke rises at different speeds, but they’re all on fire, and we’re all trapped.