Isaac Bashevis Singer
Actually, the true story of a person's life can never be written. It is beyond the power of literature. The full tale of any life would be both utterly boring and utterly unbelievable.Collection: Would Be
Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression. The chasm is never completely bridged. We all have the conviction, perhaps illusory, that we have much more to say than appears on the paper.Collection: Writing
I get up every morning with a desire to do some creative work. This desire is made of the same stuff as the sexual desire, the desire to make money, or any other desire.Collection: Morning
The Yiddish mentality is not haughty. It does not take victory for granted. It does not demand and command but it muddles through, sneaks by, smuggles itself amidst the powers of destruction, knowing somewhere that God's plan for Creation is still at the very beginning.Collection: Knowing
We all play chess with Fate as partner. He makes a move, we make a move. He tries to checkmate us in three moves, we try to prevent it. We know we can't win, but we're driven to give him a good fight.Collection: Moving
In the half darkness I winked to my other self, my mad dictator, and congratulated him on his droll victory. I closed my eyes and felt the warmth flowing from Shosha's head to my face. What did I have to lose? Nothing more than what everyone loses anyway.Collection: Eye
There is a quiet humor in Yiddish and a gratitude for every day of life, every crumb of success, each encounter of love... In a figurative way, Yiddish is the wise and humble language of us all, the idiom of a frightened and hopeful humanity.Collection: Wise
While the poet entertains he continues to search for eternal truths, for the essence of being. In his own fashion he tries to solve the riddle of time and change, to find an answer to suffering, to reveal love in the very abyss of cruelty and injustice. Strange as these words may sound I often play with the idea that when all the social theories collapse and wars and revolutions leave humanity in utter gloom, the poet--whom Plato banned from his Republic--may rise up to save us all.Collection: Fashion
What a strange power there is in clothing.Collection: Fashion
I know as a writer how valuable a tool is the wastebasket. Perhaps God throws away many experiments before He finds the right expression. Perhaps we are the discards - or we could be the part He keeps. This mystery is what keeps us all going, to see what happens in the next chapter.Collection: Expression
If you keep on saying things are going to be bad, you have a good chance of being a prophet... [at least for your own situation. Blind optimism is just as foolish. The solution is a rigorously balanced, rational outlook.]Collection: Optimism
The sexual organs are the most sensitive organs of the human being. They are not diplomats. They tell the truth.Collection: Diplomats
There is a plan to this universe. There is a high intelligence, maybe even a purpose, but it's given to us on the installment plan.Collection: Inspirational
As often as Herman had witnessed the slaughter of animals and fish, he always had the same thought: in their behavior toward creatures, all men were Nazis.Collection: Animal
Man is a disgusting thing. If you beat him he starts to scream, but if it is the other one who is beaten, then he constructs a theory.Collection: Men
In the history of old Jewish literature there was never any basic difference between the poet and the prophet. Our ancient poetry often became law and a way of life.Collection: Law
A Marxist has never written a good novel.Collection: Marxist
The soul never dies and the body is never really alive.Collection: Soul
No matter how much you know a human being, you don't know him enough.Collection: Relationship
I believe in God but people are liars. It's those people who say they are appointed by God who I don't believe in.Collection: Truth
In God's mill even chaff becomes flour.Collection: God
There is a permanent amnesia planted in us, which just as we keep forgetting our dreams, we sometimes keep on forgetting our reality.Collection: Dream
All is foreseen but the choice is given.Collection: Choices
From borrowing one gets poorer and from work one gets richer.Collection: Money
As often as Herman had witnessed the slaughter of animals and fish, he always had the same thought: in their behavior toward creatures, all men were Nazis. The smugness with which man could do with other species as he pleased exemplified the most extreme racist theories, the principle that might is right.Collection: Animal
But if we have people who have the power to tell a story, there will always be readers.Collection: People
The more you see what other people do, the more you learn about yourself.Collection: People
God gave us so many emotions, and so many strong ones. Every human being, even if he is an idiot, is a millionaire in emotions.Collection: Strong
The Jewish people have been in exile for 2,000 years; they have lived in hundreds of countries, spoken hundreds of languages and still they kept their old language, Hebrew. They kept their Aramaic, later their Yiddish; they kept their books; they kept their faith.Collection: Country
No technological achievements can mitigate the disappointment of modern man, his loneliness, his feeling of inferiority, and his fear of war, revolution and terror. Not only has our generation lost faith in Providence but also in man himself, in his institutions and often in those who are nearest to him.Collection: Disappointment
I believe in free will. I have no choice.Collection: Believe
While facts never become obsolete or stale, commentaries always do.Collection: Facts
How can we speak of right and justice if we take an innocent creature and shed its blood? How can we pray to God for mercy if we ourselves have no mercy? Nobel laureate in literature.Collection: Blood
No doubt the world is entirely an imaginary world, but it is only once removed from the true world.Collection: Doubt
Various philosophers and religious leaders tried to convince their disciples and followers that animals are nothing more than machines without a soul, without feelings. However, anyone who has ever lived with an animal-be it a dog, a bird, or even a mouse-knows that this theory is a brazen lie, invented to justify cruelty.Collection: Religious
God is a writer and we are both the heroes and the readers.Collection: Hero
In relation to them (animals), all people are Nazis for the animals, it is an eternal Treblinka.Collection: Animal
In many ways, astrology, numerology and palmistry are corruptions of the occult because they have attempted to make a practice out of something that is essentially imaginative.Collection: Practice
What happened was no accident. Everything was preordained. True, the will was free, but heaven also made its ordinances.Collection: Heaven
In our time, when the literature for adults is deteriorating, good books for children are the only hope, the only refuge.Collection: Children
There is no death. How can there be death if everything is part of the Godhead? The soul never dies and the body is never really alive.Collection: Death
To be a vegetarian is to disagree - to disagree with the course of things today... starvation, cruelty - we must make a statement against these things. Vegetarianism is my statement. And I think it's a strong one.Collection: Strong
What do these children do without storybooks?" Naftali asked. And Reb Zebulun replied: "They have to make do. Storybooks aren't bread. You can live without them." I couldn't live without them." Naftali said.Collection: Children
Children?have no use for psychology.Collection: Children
Those who run around with women don't walk tightropes. They find it hard enough to crawl on the ground.Collection: Running
When literature becomes overly erudite, it means that interest in the art has gone and curiosity about the artist is what's important. It becomes a kind of idolatry.Collection: Art
A story to me must have some surprise...I must have a passion to write the story.Collection: Passion
Writing has power, but its power has no vector. Writers can stir the mind, but they can't direct it. Time changes things, God changes things, the dictators change things, but writers can't change anything.Collection: Writing
To me the Yiddish language and the conduct of those who spoke it are identical.Collection: Language