Isaac Bashevis Singer Quotes

Misfortune draws people to religion and mysticism

Es imposible escribir la verdadera historia de la vida de una persona. Supera el poder de la literatura. El relato completo de cualquier vida sería absolutamente aburrido además de absolutamente increíble.

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.

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.

You wrote somewhere that one sins in another world, and that this world is hell. For you, that may have been just a phrase, but it’s the truth.
Brother Beetle

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.

Irgendwo war mir ein Rest von Glauben an den freien Willen geblieben, aber an diesem Morgen war ich sicher, dem Menschen blieb so viel freie Wahl wie dem Uhrwerk in meiner Armbanduhr oder der Fliege, die auf dem Rand meiner Untertasse saß. Es waren die gleichen Kräfte, die Hitler, Stalin, den Papst, den Rabbi von Gur und ein Molekül in der Mitte der Erde antrieben, wie auch ein Sternbild, das Milliarden Lichtjahre entfernt von der Milchstraße war. Blinde Mächte? Sehende Mächte? Es war gleichgültig geworden. Es war uns bestimmt, unsere kleinen Spiele zu spielen und zermalmt zu werden.

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

I ordered breakfast. I watched someone at the next table working away at his plate of ham with eggs. I had long since come to the conclusion that man's treatment of God's creatures makes mockery of all his ideals and of the whole alleged humanism. In order for this overstuffed individual to enjoy his ham, a living creature had to be raised, dragged to its death, stabbed, tortured, scalded in hot water. The man didn't give a second's thought to the fact the pig was made of the same stuff as he and that it had to pay with suffering and death so that he could taste its flesh. I've thought more than once that when it comes to animals, every man is a Nazi.

But I never forgot Shosha. I dreamed of her at night. In my dreams she was both dead and alive. I played with her in a garden which was also a cemetery. Dead girls joined us there, wearing garments that were ornate shrouds. They danced in circles and sang songs. They swung, skated, occasionally hovered in the air. I strolled with Shosha in a forest of gigantic trees that reached the sky. The birds there were different from any I knew. They were as big as eagles, as colorful as parrots. They spoke Yiddish. From the thickets surrounding the garden, beasts with human faces showed themselves. Shosha was at home in this garden, and instead of my pointing out and explaining to her as I had done in the past, she revealed to me things I hadn't known and whispered secrets in my ear. Her hair had grown long enough to reach her loins, and her flesh glowed like mother-of-pearl. I always awoke from this dream with a sweet taste in my mouth and the impression that Shosha was on longer living.

How is it possible, after all, that someone should simply vanish? How can someone who lived, loved, and wrangled with God and with himself just disappear? I don’t know how and in what sense but they’re here. Since time is an illusion, why shouldn’t everything remain?

Wir laufen davon, und der Berg Sinai läuft hinter uns her. Diese Jagd hat uns krank gemacht.

It is a general rule that when the grain of truth cannot be found, men will swallow great helpings of falsehood.

His eyes reflected a softness I had already forgotten in America.

Where do the wheels of history lead? How can you be so sure that the wheels of history won't get bogged down in blood and marrow again?