# Quote — Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated

> I used to think that humor was the only way to appreciate how wonderful and terrible the world is, to celebrate how big life is. But now I think the opposite. Humor is a way of shrinking from that wonderful and terrible world.

- Author: [Jonathan Safran Foer](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-safran-foer.md)
- Book: [Everything is Illuminated](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-safran-foer/everything-is-illuminated.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jonathan_Safran_Foer#Everything_Is_Illuminated_(2002)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-safran-foer/everything-is-illuminated/i-used-to-think

## More from this book

> My friends are appeased to stay in Odessa for their entire lives. They are appeased to age like their parents, and become parents like their parents. They do not desire anything more than everything they have known.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-safran-foer/everything-is-illuminated/my-friends-are.md)

> She spent the afternoon staring at their front door. "Waiting for someone?" Yankel asked. "What color is this?" He stood very close to the door, letting the end of his nose touch the peephole. He licked the wood and joked, "It certainly tastes like red." "Yes, it is red, isn't it?" "Seems so." She buried her head in her hands. "But couldn’t it be just a bit more red?" (pp. 79-80)

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-safran-foer/everything-is-illuminated/she-spent-the.md)

> Words never mean what we want them to mean.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-safran-foer/everything-is-illuminated/words-never-mean.md)