Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

by Jonathan Safran Foer

Isn’t it so weird how the number of dead people is increasing even though the earth stays the same size, so that one day there isn’t going to be room to bury anyone anymore?

Also, that could be extremely useful, because if you’re on the ninety-fifth floor, and a plane hits below you, the building could take you to the ground, and everyone could be safe, even if you left your birdseed shirt at home that day.

It’s not that I believe in things that can’t be observed now, because I don’t. It’s that I believe that things are extremely complicated.

I love making jewelry for her, because it makes her happy, and making her happy is another one of my raisons d’être.

Parents are always more knowledgeable than their children, and children are always smarter than their parents.”

“But if you don’t tell me anything, how can I ever be right?” He circled something in an article and said, “Another way of looking at it would be, how could you ever be wrong?”

So why was she suddenly starting to forget about me? Every time I left our apartment to go searching for the lock, I became a little lighter, because I was getting closer to Dad. But I also became a little heavier, because I was getting farther from Mom.

Did anyone see the ambulance and wonder if it was me inside?

I wondered, Why does anyone ever make love?

“You’re not being annoying,” she said, but it’s extremely hard to believe someone when they tell you that.

What were we spending so much time doing if not getting to know each other?

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,

we were trying to make our lives easier, trying, with all of our rules, to make life effortless. But a friction began to arise between Nothing and Something,

I imagined their roots wrapped around books, pulling nourishment from the pages, I imagined rings of letters in their trunks,

she wants to know if I love her, that’s all anyone wants from anyone else, not love itself but the knowledge that love is there,

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!”

It was getting hard to keep all the things I didn’t know inside me.

“It’s not a horrible world,” he told me, putting a Cambodian mask on his face, “but it’s filled with a lot of horrible people!”

The bathroom smelled like an old person, and some of the tiles that were supposed to be on the wall were on the floor.

You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.

We owed it to each other, which is something different.

I regret that it takes a life to learn how to live,

I thought if everyone could see what I saw, we would never have war anymore.

Just as a joke I asked him if he was gay. He said, “I suppose so.” “Really?” I asked, but I didn’t take back my hand, because I’m not homophobic.

even if I couldn’t, feeling pain is still better than not feeling, isn’t it?

I looked at everyone and wondered where they came from, and who they missed, and what they were sorry for.

“Would it be all right if I mentioned the ten thousand birds in my future tours?” I told her they didn’t belong to me.

“What is it about this building?” Mr. Black asked. She said, “If I had an answer, it wouldn’t really be love, would it?”

why couldn’t I remind people of me?

“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?

All of a sudden I understood why, when Mom asked where I was going, and I said “Out,” she didn’t ask any more questions. She didn’t have to, because she knew.

They knew I was coming. Mom had talked to all of them before I had.

I only spoke with him for a few minutes, but that was long enough to see that he was good.

It’s better to lose than never to have had.

Why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you?

It’s always necessary. I love you,

“Janet, the older one, she loves cereal. She’d eat it three meals a day if we let her.”

I knew it shouldn’t matter, because once you’re dead, you don’t feel anything. So why did it feel like it mattered?

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. But it was also incredibly simple. In my only life, she was my mom, and I was her son.