Leo Rosten Quotes

Why do the wicked always form groups, whereas the righteous do not? Because the wicked, walking in darkness, need company, but the righteous, who live in the light, do not fear being alone.

If God lived on earth,” goes a sardonic Yiddish saying, “people would knock out all His windows.

Boychik or boychikel is used with affection, even admiration, the way some people say, “That’s my boy,” or the way an earlier generation said, “Oh, you kid!” “Hello, boychik” or “How are you, boychikel?” may be uttered to males long past their boyhood; generally, when used to or about an aging man, boychik carries a tinge of sarcasm — but it can be used fondly: Affectionate: “That Sam” — sigh — ”he has the spirit of a boychik.” Sarcastic: “At his age to go after young girls … ! Some boychik!” 2. Critically: A sharp operator; one who cuts corners. “He’s some boychik” can mean anything from “He’s a tricky fellow” to “Watch

I wouldn’t say ‘Hello’ to a paskudnyak like that!” “Did you ever hear of such a paskudnyak?” “That whole family is a collection of paskudnyaks.” This word is one of the most greasily graphic, I think, in Yiddish. It offers the connoisseur three nice, long syllables, starting with a sibilant of reprehension and ending with a nasality of scorn. It adds cadence to contempt.

The great rabbis did not “create” Halakha: what the rabbis did was to codify and clarify the legal teachings, adapting them to changing social conditions. “The Rabbinic Halakha,” writes Judah Goldin, “protected legislation from inflexibility and society from fundamentalism

Two cheder students were discussing how hard and tiring their studies had become, and impulsively one blurted: “Let’s run away!” “Run away? … Our fathers would catch up with us and give us a sound thrashing.” “So we’ll hit them back!” “What? Hit your father?! You must be mad. Have you forgotten the Commandment — always to honor your father and mother?” “Mmh…. So you hit my father and I’ll hit yours.

George S. Kaufman, a prince of wit, once remarked that he liked to write with his collaborator, Moss Hart, because Hart was so lucky. “In my case,” said Kaufman, “it’s gelt by association.

I think the purpose of life is to be useful, responsible, honorable, compassionate. It is, above all, to matter: to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.

The sense of differentiation is so acute in Yiddish that a word like, say, paskudnyak has no peer in any language I know for the vocal delineation of a nasty character. And Yiddish coins new names with ease for new personality types: a nudnik is a pest; a phudnik is a nudnik with a Ph.D.

The famous Dubner maggid, a gaon, was asked by an admiring student: “How is it that you always have the perfect parable for the topic under discussion?” The gaon smiled. “I’ll answer with a parable.” And he told the following story: A lieutenant of the Tsar’s cavalry, riding through a small shtetl, drew his horse up in astonishment, for on the side of a barn he saw a hundred chalked circles — and in the center of each was a bullet hole! The lieutenant excitedly stopped the first passerby, crying, “Who is the astonishing marksman in this place? Look at all those bull’s-eyes!” The passerby sighed. “That’s Shepsel, the shoemaker’s son, who is a little peculiar.” “I don’t care what he is,” said the lieutenant. “Any man who can shoot that well — ” “Ah,” the pedestrian said, “you don’t understand. You see, first Shepsel shoots — then he draws the circle.” The gaon smiled. “That’s the way it is with me. I don’t search for a parable to fit the subject. I introduce the subject for which I have a perfect parable.

Why is sholem used for both “hello” and “good-bye”? Israelis say: “Because we have so many problems that half the time we don’t know whether we’re coming or going.

Jews are not proselytizers.*Rabbis are required to make three separate efforts to discourage a would-be convert.

Which is more important: money or wisdom? “Wisdom,” says the philosopher. “Ha!” scoffs the cynic. “If wisdom is more important than money, why is it that the wise wait on the rich, and not the rich on the wise?” “Because,” says the scholar, “the wise, being wise, understand the value of money; but the rich, being only rich, do not know the value of wisdom.

Yiddish, the language which will ever bear witness to the violence and murder inflicted on us, bears the marks of our expulsions from land to land, the language which absorbed the wails of the fathers, the laments of the generations, the poison and bitterness of history, the language whose precious jewels are undried, uncongealed Jewish tears.

Mr. Kaplan smiled back and answered promptly, “Vell, I´ll tell you about Prazidents United States. Fife Prazidents United States is Abram Lincohen, he vas freeink de neegers; Hodding, Coolitch, Judge Vashington, an´ Banjamin Franklin.”
Futher encouragement revealed that Mr. Kaplan´s literary Valhalla the “most famous tree American wriders” were Jeck Laundon, Valt Viterman, and the author of “Hawk l. Barry-Feen,” one Mock- tvain. Mr. Kaplan took pains to point out that he did not mention Relfvaldo Amerson because “He is a poyet, an´I´m talkink about wriders.