Jonathan Safran FoerShe was like a drowning person, flailing, reaching for anything that might save her. Her life was an urgent, desperate struggle to justify her life.
About This Quote
It’s been a long time since I read this, but when I did it was in a book by John Knowles called “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.” He was describing a character in the book named Francie Nolan, who worked at a sweatshop in an old tenement house. One day, she saw a man being assaulted on the street. She ran out of the building and tried to help him, but he was dying and his attacker had already left. In desperation, she clung to him and whispered something in his ear.
When he died, the police took her in for questioning. She told them she had been comforting him, but later she realized that what she had said to him had been really important to him. It helped him find his greatness; whatever he did with his life he could never be too great to tell her.
So she didn’t feel bad about lying to the police; she knew what was best for everyone concerned.
Source: Everything Is Illuminated
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