I first became a vegetarian when I was nine, in response to an argument made by a radical babysitter. My great change - which lasted a couple of weeks - was based on the very simple instinct that it's wrong to kill animals for food.
From Jonathan Safran Foer
In high school I became a vegetarian more times than I can now remember, most often as an effort to claim some identity in a world of people whose identities seemed to come effortlessly.
The question, I've come to think, is not what inspires one to change, but what inspires one to remain changed.
How could this world be so unlike the world that I believed I was living in? I can't describe it. Do I not want to describe it, or do I simply not possess the vocabulary?
You write to please yourself, you write to move yourself, to engage yourself in the asking of questions that are important to you.
The best books are the ones that ask the most questions.
It's a good rule of thumb, it seems to me: if you're not allowed to see where something comes from, don't put it in your mouth.
For a long time, I thought I would like to be a doctor. Such a good profession. So explicitly good. Never a waste of time.
Maybe one day the world will change, that we'll be in a luxurious position of being able to debate whether or not it's inherently wrong to eat animals, but the question doesn't matter right now.
To remember my values, I need to lose certain tastes and find other handles for the memories that they once helped me carry.
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