Isaac Bashevis Singer
One can find in the Yiddish tongue and in the Yiddish spirit expressions of pious joy, lust for life, longing for the Messiah, patience and deep appreciation of human individuality.Collection: Appreciation
As much as I can give of myself I give of myself. There's no reason why not. And when I have to hide something, I let the character speak.Collection: Character
It is a fact that the classics of Yiddish literature are also the classics of the modern Hebrew literature.Collection: Literature
Every body resisted (the slaughterer) in its own fashion, tried to escape and seemed to argue with the Creator to its last breath.Collection: Fashion
What's the good of not believing? Today it's your wife you don't believe; tomorrow it's God Himself you won't take stock in.Collection: Believe
But my gloom did not lessen. I knew that I'd had a bad dream, and I stood in the dark trying to recollect it. The second I closed my eyes, I was with the dead. They did things words cannot express. They spoke madness. ("Hanka")Collection: Dream
Heaven and earth conspire that everything which has been, be rooted and reduced to dust. Only the dreamers, who dream while awake, call back the shadows of the past and braid nets from the unspun thread.Collection: Dream
Shoulders are from God and burdens too.Collection: Burden
The truth is that what the great religions preached, the Yiddish-speaking people of the ghettos practiced day in and day out. They were the people of The Book in the truest sense of the word. They knew of no greater joy than the study of man and human relations, which they called Torah, Talmud, Mussar, Cabala.Collection: Book
When a human being kills an animal for food, he is neglecting his own hunger for justice.Collection: Animal
I am not ashamed to admit that I belong to those who fantasize that literature is capable of bringing new horizons and new perspectives--philosophical, religious, aesthetical and even social.Collection: Religious
Children have no use for psychology. They detest sociology. They still believe in God, the family, angels, devils, witches, goblins, logic, clarity, punctuation, and other such obsolete stuff. When a book is boring, they yawn openly. They don't expect their writer to redeem humanity, but leave to adults such childish allusions.Collection: Children
No lepidopterist's collection in the entire world...full if iridescent wings, is worth the life of a single butterfly.Collection: Butterfly
I was brought up to believe in free will. Although I came to doubt all revelation, I can never accept the idea that the Universe is a physical or chemical accident, a result of blind evolution. Even though I learned to recognize the lies, the clichés and the idolatries of the human mind, I still cling to some truths which I think all of us might accept some day.Collection: Lying
When we're trying to decide whether a leader is a good leader or a bad one, the question to ask is: 'Is he with the Ten Commandments or is he against them?' Then you can determine if the leader is a true messiah or another Stalin.Collection: Leader
Whatever doesn't really happen is dreamed at night. It happens to one if it doesn't happen to another, tomorrow if not today, or a century hence if not next year.Collection: Night
Children read books, not reviews. They don't give a hoot about critics.Collection: Children
When a human kills an animal for food, he is neglecting his own hunger for justice. Man prays for mercy, but is unwilling to extend it to others. Why should man then expect mercy from God? It's unfair to expect something that you are not willing to give.Collection: Men
I have heard from my father and mother all the answers that faith in God could offer to those who doubt and search for the truth. In our home and in many other homes the eternal questions were more actual than the latest news in the Yiddish newspaper. In spite of all the disenchantments and all my skepticism I believe that the nations can learn much from those Jews, their way of thinking, their way of bringing up children, their finding happiness where others see nothing but misery and humiliation.Collection: Mother
Slaughter and justice cannot dwell together.Collection: Animal
A story to me means a plot where there is some surprise... Because this is how life is full of surprises.Collection: Inspirational
When a writer tries to explain too much, he's out of time before he begins.Collection: Writing
When the time comes I will go joyfully. Whatever may be there, it will be real, without complication, without ridicule, without deception.Collection: Real
The characters have their own lives and their own logic, and you have to act accordingly.Collection: Character
Each soul must accomplish its task, or it would not have been sent here.Collection: Soul
It is written, better to be a fool all your days than for one hour to be evil. You are not a fool. They are the fools. For he who causes his neighbor to feel shame loses Paradise himself.Collection: Evil
It seems that the analysis of character is the highest human entertainment. And literature does it, unlike gossip, without mentioning names.Collection: Character
There must be a way for man to attain all possible pleasures, all the powers and knowledge that nature can grant him, and still serve God--a God who speaks in deeds, not in words, and whose vocabulary is the Cosmos.Collection: Men
What nature creates has eternity in it.Collection: Nature
The ghetto was not only a place of refuge for a persecuted minority but a great experiment in peace, in self-discipline and in humanism. As such it still exists and refuses to give up in spite of all the brutality that surrounds it. I was brought up among those people.Collection: Giving Up
The genuine writer cannot ignore the fact that the family is losing its spiritual foundation.Collection: Spiritual
They still believe in God, the family, angels, witches, goblins, logic, clarity, punctuation, and other obsolete stuff.Collection: Believe
I don't invent characters because the Almightly has already invented millions... Just like experts at fingerprints do not create fingerprints but learn how to read them.Collection: Art
Sometimes you have the feeling that some little imp is standing behind you and dictating to you, but he gives it to you slowly, drop by drop.Collection: Patience
The pessimism of the creative person is not decadence but a mighty passion for the redemption of man.Collection: Passion
When a day passes, it is no longer there. What remains of it? Nothing more than a story. If stories weren’t told or books weren’t written, man would live like the beasts, only for the day.Collection: Book
Children read books, not reviews. They don’t give a hoot about critics.Collection: Book
If we have people with the power to tell a story, there will always be readers.Collection: Stories
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: Stories