Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

by Jonathan Safran Foer

I've thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it.

I remember spending an afternoon with Mr. Richter in the Central Park Zoo, I went weighted down with food for the animals, only someone who'd never been an animal would put up a sign saying not to feed them,

"You're sure?" "Pretty sure." "Are you more or less than seventy-five-percent sure?" "More." "Ninety-nine percent?" "Less." "Ninety percent?" "About that." I concentrated for a few seconds. "That's a lot of percent."

Darling, You asked me to write you a letter, so I am writing you a letter. I do not know why I am writing this letter, or what this letter is supposed to be about, but I am writing it nonetheless, because I love you very much and trust that you have some good purpose for having me write this letter. I hope that one day you will have the experience of doing something you do not understand for someone you love. Your father

It was the first time I had ever made love. I wondered if he knew that. It felt like crying. I wondered, Why does anyone ever make love?

I like to see people reunited, maybe that's a silly thing, but what can I say, I like to see people run to each other, I like the kissing and the crying, I like the impatience, the stories that the mouth can't tell fast enough, the ears that aren't big enough, the eyes that can't take in all of the change, I like the hugging, the bringing together, the end of missing someone,

I had so much to ask her, "Do you like to lie on your stomach and look for things under the ice?" "Do you like plays?" "Do you like it when you can hear something before you can see it?"

"My life story is the story of everyone I've ever met."

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.

"You don't feel bad that I asked about her? You can tell me if you do." "No!" he said. "Thinking about her is the next best thing!"

there are so many times when you know you're feeling a lot of something, but you don't know what the something is. Am I frustrated? Am I actually just panicky? And that confusion changes your mood, it becomes your mood, and you become a confused, gray person. But with the special water, you could look at your orange hands and think, I'm happy! That whole time I was actually happy! What a relief!

"Oskar, did it ever occur to you that things might be more complicated than they seem?" "That occurs to me all the time."

It's a shame that we have to live, but it's a tragedy that we get to live only one life.

Shyness is when you turn your head away from something you want. Shame is when you turn your head away from something you do not want.

When I was a girl, my life was music that was always getting louder. Everything moved me. A dog following a stranger. That made me feel so much. A calendar that showed the wrong month. I could have cried over it. I did. Where the smoke from a chimney ended. How an overturned bottle rested at the edge of a table. I spent my life learning to feel less. Every day I felt less. Is that growing old? Or is it something worse? You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.

Touching him was always so important to me. It was something I lived for. I never could explain why. Little, nothing touches. My fingers against his shoulder. The outsides of our thighs touching as we squeezed together on the bus. I couldn't explain it, but I needed it. Sometimes I imagined stitching all of our little touches together. How many hundreds of thousands of fingers brushing against each other does it take to make love?

He promised us that everything would be OK. I was a child, but I knew that everything would not be OK. That did not make my father a liar. It made him my father.

"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."

I told Mr. Black that I was panicky, and he said it was OK to be panicky. I told him I felt like I couldn't do it, and he said it was OK to feel like I couldn't do it. I told him it was the thing that I was most afraid of. He said he could understand why. I wanted him to disagree with me, but he wouldn't, so I had no way to argue.

You can see the most beautiful things from the observation deck of the Empire State Building. I read somewhere that people on the street are supposed to look like ants, but that's not true. They look like little people. And the cars look like little cars. And even the buildings look little. It's like New York is a miniature replica of New York, which is nice, because you can see what it's really like, instead of how it feels when you're in the middle of it. It's extremely lonely up there, and you feel far away from everything. Also it's scary, because there are so many ways to die. But it feels safe, too, because you're surrounded by so many people.

He was always selling something or other. He loved the next thing that would change life. And he was always coming up with wonderful, crazy ideas. A bit like you," she said to me, which gave me heavy boots, because why couldn't I remind people of me?

the world is so big and small, in the same moment we were close and far.

I wish I had known that I wasn't going to see Mr. Black again when we shook hands that afternoon. I wouldn't have let go. Or I would have forced him to keep searching with me. Or I would have told him about how Dad called when I was home. But I didn't know, just like I didn't know it was the last time Dad would ever tuck me in, because you never know.

"Mom?" "Yes?" "I'm going out." "OK." "I'll be back later." "OK." "I don't know when. It could be extremely late." "OK." Why didn't she ask me more? Why didn't she try to stop me, or at least keep me safe?

"She was right, though. It was crazy. It was unreasonable. I was being childish." "Yeah, but you were his child."

To make a long story short—" "Don't make it short," I said, because even though I wanted him to tell me about my dad instead of his, I also wanted to make the story as long as I could, because I was afraid of its end.

"He had a very discerning eye." "What's that?" "He knew what he liked. He knew when he'd found it." "That's true. He had an incredibly discerning eye."

"I don't think it's a question of wanting." I asked him, "What's it a question of?"

And how can you say I love you to someone you love?

I kept thinking about how they were all the names of dead people, and how names are basically the only thing that dead people keep.

I don't believe in God, but I believe that things are extremely complicated, and her looking over me was as complicated as anything ever could be.