Fear Quotes in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

This is how Oskar tries to describe his panic and fear, about things like bridges, airplanes, and fireworks. He retreats inside himself when he gets scared. What he expresses here isn't a specific phobia, though; it's a general feeling of being lost and disconnected.

Oskar goes to great lengths to avoid confronting his fears. It may take him a long time to get where he's going, but at least he gets there. But you can see how his fears are controlling his life.

This is when we start noticing that Oskar is facing his fears. Maybe that was part of his Mom's plan, once she started talking to all the Blacks: to get them to help Oskar overcome things he's scared about. It takes engagement with another person to help him face things.

We're not sure if Oskar is lying here, or if this used to be true and now it no longer is. There's barely a page that goes by in this book where Oskar isn't on his own and talking to strangers with relative ease.

Grandpa doesn't seem scared when the bombs fall on Dresden, probably because of adrenaline and shock. It's not until he has a moment in which he really sees himself in the aftermath that fear sets in.

This is a moment of terrible, terrible fear: the dawning realization in both Grandma and Mom that they may have lost Dad in the September 11th attacks. Like when Grandpa lived through the bombing, it takes a while for the true fear to set in. It begins as worry and anxiety.

The scarf that never ends is a good symbol for Grandma's fear. She passes it on to Oskar, who uses it to wrap the phone with dad's last message on it.

Again, we see Oskar conquering his fear with a little help from Mr. Black who employs some impeccable (if morbid) logic. He tells Oskar that he'd feel bad if he didn't go, and if he dies, well, he won't feel anything at all.

Grandma doesn't stay with Grandpa out of love; she stays with him because she's afraid of being alone. Wouldn't it be easier to join a knitting group or Zumba class or something? Do you think many people stay in relationships out of fear?

Oskar is eerily reliving Grandma's fear that all the papers she kept somehow contributed to her house fire during the Dresden bombing. Oskar even considers not keeping so many papers in the future, because doing so might cause more people to die. This is a kind of magical thinking that people do when things seem impossibly scary.