The Burrowing Poems
(1) to lodge, hide, or take refuge in any deep or concealed place
(2) a passage or gallery formed under the skin
She leaned back and looked at him with something like hurt, and then he almost but didn’t say the two sentences he’d been meaning to say for years: ‘Part of me is made of glass,’ and also, ‘I love you.’
NICOLE KRAUSS, from “THE HISTORY OF LOVE”
You write to someone you can’t be with.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER, from “EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE”
She let out a laugh, and then she put her hand over her mouth, like she was angry at herself for forgetting her sadness.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER, from “EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE”
It broke my heart into more pieces than my heart was made of… why can’t people say what they meant at the time?
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER, from “EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE”
I would have done anything for him. Maybe that was my sickness.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER, from “EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE”
5
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.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER, from “EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE”
1
I tried so hard to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be.
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, from “THE GLASS MENAGERIE”
13
Even though it was an incredibly sad day, she looked so, so beautiful. I kept trying to figure out a way to tell her that, but all of the ways I thought of were weird and wrong.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER, from “EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE”
8
For it is rash to walk into a lion’s den unarmed, rash to navigate the Atlantic in a rowing boat, rash to stand on one foot on the top of St. Paul’s, it is still more rash to go home alone with a poet.
VIRGINIA WOOLF, from “ORLANDO”
He shrugged his shoulders like he had no idea what I was talking about. I loved that.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER, from “EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE”
6
You are so busy being you that you have no idea how utterly unprecedented you are.
JOHN GREEN, from “THE FAULT IN OUR STARS”
8
As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.
JOHN GREEN, from “THE FAULT IN OUR STARS”
17
I’m so afraid of losing something I love that I refuse to love anything.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER, from “EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE”
21
Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.
J.D. SALINGER, from “THE CATCHER IN THE RYE”
5
