Isaac Bashevis Singer Quotes

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.

A story to me means a plot where there is some surprise. Because that is how life is - full of surprises.

"Yes, I lay in my grave. But if you lie in a grave long enough, you get accustomed to it and you don't want to part from it. He had given me a pill of cyanide, He and his wife and their son also carried such pills. We all lived with death, and I want you to know that one can fall in love with death. Whoever has loved death cannot love anything else any more. When the liberation came and they told me to leave, I didn't want to go. I clung to the threshold like an ox being dragged to the slaughter. ("Hanka")"

She made Herman think of a stale loaf of bread put into a hot oven to be freshened up.

No doubt the world is entirely an imaginary world,
but it is only once removed from the true world. At the
door of the hovel where I lie, there stands the plank on
which the dead are taken away. The gravedigger Jew
has his spade ready. The grave waits and the worms are
hungry; the shrouds are prepared-! carry them in my
beggar's sack. Another shnorrer is waiting to inherit my
bed of straw. When the time comes I will go joyfully.
Whatever may be there, it will be real, without complication,
without ridicule, without deception. God be
praised: there even Gimpel cannot be deceived.

Habría que sentir una total indiferencia hacia el hombre y el animal para conseguir ser feliz.

There are 500 reasons I write for children.... Children read books, not reviews. They don't give a hoot about the critics.... They don't read to free themselves of guilt, to quench their thirst for rebellion, or to get rid of alienation. They still believe in God, the family, angels, devils, witches, goblins, logic, clarity, punctuation, and other such obsolete stuff.... They don't expect their beloved writer to redeem humanity. Young as they are, they know that it is not in his power. Only the adults have such childish illusions.

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

We have to believe in free-will. We've got no choice.

No doubt the world is entirely an imaginary world, but it is only once removed from the true world.

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.

Wie ich höre, zeigt auch der Himmel eine Leidenschaft für das Neue. Ein Stern wird müde, ein Stern zu sein, und er explodiert und wird eine Nova.

إذا كان الإله حكيمًا فكيف تكون هناك حماقة؟ وإذا كان الإله هو الحياة فكيف يكون هناك موت؟ إني أرقد بالليل، رجل ضئيل، ذبابة نصف مسحوقة وأتحدث إلى الأموات وإلى الأحياء، وإلى الإله إن كان موجودًا، وإلى الشيطان الموجود يقينًا وأسألهم: ما الحاجة إلى كل هذا ؟

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.

There are some who call Yiddish a dead language, but so was Hebrew called for two thousand years. It has been revived in our time in a most remarkable, almost miraculous way. Aramaic was certainly a dead language for centuries but then it brought to light the Zohar, a work of mysticism of sublime value.