Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

"Feathers filled the small room. Our laughter kept the feathers in the air. I thought about birds. Could they fly is there wasn't someone, somewhere, laughing?"

"The mistakes I've made are dead to me. But I can't take back the things I never did."

"I regret that it takes a life to learn how to live."

"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!"

"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."

"When I heard your organization was recording testimonies, I knew I had to come. She died in my arms, saying 'I don't want to die.' That is what death is like. It doesn't matter what uniforms the soldiers are wearing. It doesn't matter how good the weapons are. I thought if everyone could see what I saw, we would never have war anymore."