In the past seven years of ...

In the past seven years of love-making he had heard the words \
In the past seven years of love-making he had heard the words "I love you" so many times: from the mouths of widows and children, from prostitutes, family friends, travelers, and adulterous wives. Women said "I love you" without his ever speaking. "The more you love someone," he came to think, "the harder it is to tell them." It surprised him that strangers didn't stop each other on the street to say "I love you".
 Jonathan Safran Foer

Quotes from the same author

I realized that your mother couldn't see the emptiness, she couldn't see anything...All of the words I'd written to her over all of those years, had I never said anything to hear at all?
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 Jonathan Safran Foer
We eat as sons and daughters, as families, as communities, as generations, as nations, and increasingly as a globe. We can't stop our eating from radiating influence even if we want to.
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 Jonathan Safran Foer
Cruelty depends on an understanding of cruelty, and the ability to choose against it. Or to choose to ignore it.
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 Jonathan Safran Foer
We need a better way to talk about eating animals, a way that doesn't ignore, or even just shruggingly accept things like habits, cravings, family and history, but rather incorporates them into the conversation. The more they are allowed in, the more strongly we will want to follow our best instincts.
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 Jonathan Safran Foer
I tried the key in all the doors, even though he said he didn't recognize it. It's not that I didn't trust him, becuase I did. It's that at the end of my search I wanted to be able to say: I don't know how I could have tried harder.
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 Jonathan Safran Foer