Meeting Jonathan Safran Foer at the National Book Festival might be my favorite moment of the semester thus far. I had him sign my copy of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. A lot of people I know aren't familiar with his words, which is a shame. My paperback copies of Extremely Loud and Everything is Illuminated are marked up with pen and highlighter

"Humans are the only animal that blushes, laughs, has religion, wages war, and kisses with lips. So in a way, the more you kiss with lips, the more human you are. And the more you wage war."

"Songs are as sad as the listener."

"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!"

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

"I want an infinitely blank book and the rest of time...
...why didn't I learn to treat everything like it was the last time, my greatest regret is how much I believed in the future."

"I like to see people reunited, maybe that’s a silly thing, but what can I say, I like to see people run into 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 our rules, to make life effortless. But a friction began to arise between Nothing and Something, in the morning the Nothing vase cast a Something shadow, like the memory of someone you've lost, what can you say about that, at night the Nothing light spilled from the guest room spilled under the Nothing door and stained the Something hallway, there's nothing to say. "

After waiting over an hour in line, I walked up to the signing table and handed him my book. I wanted to tell him so many things about his words and the ways they have affected me for the past four years. He asked me my name, signed the book, and smiled. I whispered a 'thank you..' and walked off.

Despite and because of my inability to speak, my admiration has only grown. Eating Animals is next on my reading list.