The sixth borough

I'm reading "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" by Jonathan Safran Foer, and I'm loving it. Not even just the pull of the story, but the writing itself. I've loved it all, but the story of the Sixth Borough really got to me. It's writing like this that both makes me want to write and become a better writer — and also terrifies me into believing that there's no way I could ever write like this, so why try? My own private writing troubles aside, let's enjoy Jonathan Safran Foer's way with words and his ability to inspire. Here are a couple excerpts:

"The Sixth Borough was also an island, separated from Manhattan by a thin body of water whose narrowest crossing happened to equal the world's long jump record, such that exactly one person on earth could go from Manhattan to the Sixth Borough without getting wet. A huge party was made of the yearly leap. Bagels were strung from island to island on special spaghetti, samosas were bowled at baguettes, Greek salads were thrown like confetti. The children of New York captured fireflies in glass jars, which they floated between the boroughs. The bugs would slowly asphyxiate... The fireflies would flicker rapidly for their last few minutes of life. If it was timed just right, the river shimmered as the jumper crossed it."

"Young friends, whose string-and-tin-can phone extended from island to island had to pay out more and more string, as if letting kits go higher and higher... The string between them grew incredibly long, so long it had to be extended with many other strings tied together: his yo-yo, the pull from her talking doll, the twine that had fastened his father's diary, the waxy string that had kept her grandmother's pearls around her neck and off the floor... They had more and more to tell each other, and less and less to string. The boy asked the girl to say 'I love you' into her can, giving her no further explanation. And she didn't ask for any, or say 'That's silly,' or 'We're too young for love,' or even suggest she was saying 'I love you' because he asked her to. Instead she said, 'I love you.' The words traveled the yo-yo, the doll, the diary, the necklace, the quilt, the clothesline, the birthday present, the harp, the tea bag, the tennis racket... The boy covered his can with a lid, removed it from the string, and put her love for him on a shelf in his closet. Of course, he never could open the can, because then he would lose its contents. It was enough just to know it was there."

"The children of New York lay on their backs, body to body, filling every inch of the park, as if it had been designed for them and that moment. The fireworks sprinkled down, dissolving in the air just before they reached the ground, and the children were pulled, one millimeter and one second at a time, into Manhattan and adulthood. By the time the park found its current resting place, every single one of the children had fallen asleep, and the park was a mosaic of their dreams. Some hollered out, some smiled unconsciously, some were perfectly still."