Isaac Bashevis Singer Quotes

Life is God's novel. Let him write it.

Wir Juden haben die Völker mit einem ewigen Gott belastet, und darum hassen sie uns.

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.

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.

At moments when Herman fantasized about a new metaphysics, or even a new religion, he based everything on the attraction of the sexes. In the beginning was lust. The godly, as well as the human, principle is desire. Gravity, light, magnetism, thought may be aspects of the same universal longing. Suffering, emptiness, darkness are nothing more than interruptions of a cosmic orgasm that grows forever in intensity...

I don't study literature, I read it for enjoyment

We must believe in free will, we have no choice.

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. The whole world, all human life, is one long story.

What a strange power there is in clothing.

One prays for life , life means free choice and freedom is mystery . If one knew the truth how could there be freedom

I didn't expect that anyone would be interested in my kind of writing. I was interested, and this was for me enough.

One thing I found out then was that pity is a form of love and, actually, its highest expression.
A Tale of Two Sisters

"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."

I started to "write" even before I knew the alphabet. I would dip a pen in ink and scribble. I also liked to draw — horses, houses, dogs. The Sabbath was an ordeal for me, because it is forbidden to write on that day.

Wann immer ich vom Leben den Status quo erwarte, taucht etwas ganz unerwartetes auf. Die Weltgeschichte ist aus dem gleichen Teig gemacht wie Semmeln. Hauptsache, sie sind frisch.