We burned with love for ourselves, all of us, starters of the fire we suffered- our love was the affliction for which only our love was the cure.
Jonathan Safran FoerRead
She wanted more, more slang, more figures of speech, the bee's knees, the cats pajamas, horse of a different color, dog-tired, she wanted to talk like she was born here, like she never came from anywhere else
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses a desire for authentic expression and connection through colloquial language.
In this quote, the character longs for a deeper connection to her surroundings by immersing herself in the local vernacular. It highlights the role of language and slang as a means of identity and belonging, suggesting that to truly integrate into a new environment, one must adopt its cultural language and expressions.
Themes
LanguageIdentityBelongingSlangExpression
In practice
Example use cases
An author might use this quote in a workshop about the importance of local dialects in storytelling.
More from Jonathan Safran Foer
All quotes →Memory was supposed to fill the time, but it made time a hole to be filled. Each second was two hundred yards, to be walked, crawled. You couldn't see the next hour, it was so far in the distance. Tomorrow was over the horizon, and would take an entire day to reach.
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A few weeks after the worst day, I started writing lots of letters. I don't know why, but it was one of the only things that made my boots lighter.
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What is being awake if not interpreting our dreams, or dreaming if not interpreting our wake?
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