Isaac Bashevis Singer Quotes

Even the worm that crawls in the Earth there glows a divine spark. When you slaughter a creature, you slaughter your God.

The greatness of art is not to find what is common but what is unique.

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

The waste basket is the writer's best friend.

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

The characters have their own lives and their own logic, and you have to act accordingly.

The analysis of character is the highest human entertainment.

There is a permanent amnesia planted in us, which just as we keep forgetting our dreams, we sometimes keep on forgetting our reality.

There is no such thing as love. Give me a cigarette. In the camp, people climbed on one another like worms.

We write not only for children but also for their parents. They, too, are serious children.

Of all the blessings bestowed on man, the greatest lies in the fact that God's face is forever hidden from him

What nature delivers to us is never stale. Because what nature creates has eternity in it.

All is foreseen but the choice is given.

To me the Yiddish language and the conduct of those who spoke it are identical.

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

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

Sometimes love is stronger than a man's convictions.

There will be no justice as long as man will stand with a knife or with a gun and destroy those who are weaker than he is.

A story to me must have some surprise ... I must have a passion to write the story.

What happened was no accident. Everything was preordained. True, the will was free, but heaven also made its ordinances.

There is no death. How can there be death if everything is part of the Godhead? The soul never dies and the body is never really alive.

There is a plan to this universe. There is a high intelligence, maybe even a purpose, but it's given to us on the installment plan.

If one knew the truth how could there be freedom? If hell and paradise were in the middle of the marketplace, everyone would be a saint.

The wastepaper basket is the writer's best friend.

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.

The sexual organs are the most sensitive organs of the human being. They are not diplomats. They tell the truth.

It is a fact that the classics of Yiddish literature are also the classics of the modern Hebrew literature.

A good writer is basically a story teller, not a scholar or a redeemer of mankind.

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

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

When you betray somebody else, you also betray yourself

While facts never become obsolete or stale, commentaries always do.

Night is a time of rigor, but also of mercy. There are truths which one can see only when it's dark

I am thankful, of course, for the prize and thankful to God for each story, each idea, each word, each day.

The New England conscience doesn't keep you from doing what you shouldn't - it just keeps you from enjoying it.

Our knowledge is a little island in a great ocean of nonknowledge.

If you hear I'm dead, don't come to my funeral.

Doubt is part of all religion. All the religious thinkers were doubters.

We know what a person thinks not when he tells us what he thinks, but by his actions.

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

If you believe in God, then He exists.

Along with the atom, the personality of the Homo Sapiens has been splitting ...

What a strange power there is in clothing.

Whenever I'm in trouble, I pray. And because I'm in trouble all of the time, I pray almost constantly.

The pessimism of the creative person is not decadence but a mighty passion for the redemption of man.

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

When I was a little boy, they called me a liar, but now that I am grown up, they call me a writer.

Every human character appears only once in the history of human beings. And so does every event of love.

Atheism is a sort of crippled mysticism, [...] Blind nature has created all that we see, as well as all that we do not see - that's a mystical notion.

Every body resisted (the slaughterer) in its own fashion, tried to escape and seemed to argue with the Creator to its last breath.

I believe in free will. I have no choice.

You must believe in free will; there is no choice.

Shoulders are from God, and burdens too.

God is a writer and we are both the heroes and the readers.

When a human being kills an animal for food, he is neglecting his own hunger for justice.

I did not become a vegetarian for my health, I did it for the health of the chickens.

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 our time, when the literature for adults is deteriorating, good books for children are the only hope, the only refuge.

Literature is the memory of humanity.

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?

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.

Man is a disgusting thing. If you beat him he starts to scream, but if it is the other one who is beaten, then he constructs a theory.

Kindness, I've discovered, is everything in life.

Two important things are to have a genuine interest in people and to be kind to them. Kindness, I've discovered, is everything.

If you keep on saying things are going to be bad, you have a good chance of being a prophet.

Of course I believe in free will. Do we have a choice?

Some of my cronies call me a pessimist and a decadent, but there is always a background of faith behind resignation.

If Moses had been paid newspaper rates for the Ten Commandments, he might have written the Two Thousand Commandments.

There will never be any peace in the world as long as we eat animals.

From borrowing one gets poorer and from work one gets richer.

Children read books, not reviews. They don't give a hoot about critics.

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.

The past is not lost. An image from years ago remained present somewhere in the fourth dimension and it reached you just in that moment.

A freelance writer is paid per word, per piece, perhaps.

In God's mill even chaff becomes flour.

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

Each soul must accomplish its task, or it would not have been sent here.

If we have people with the power to tell a story, there will always be readers.

When a writer tries to explain too much, he's out of time before he begins.

One has to trust that God knows how to manage the world.

No lepidopterist's collection in the entire world ... full if iridescent wings, is worth the life of a single butterfly.

All that God does is for the good.

For those who are willing to make an effort, great miracles and wonderful treasures are in store.

Misfortune draws people to religion and mysticism

A Marxist has never written a good novel.

Literature can very well describe the absurd, but it should never become absurd itself

It seems that the analysis of character is the highest human entertainment. And literature does it, unlike gossip, without mentioning names.

When the time comes I will go joyfully. Whatever may be there, it will be real, without complication, without ridicule, without deception.

God gave us so many emotions, and so many strong ones. Every human being, even if he is an idiot, is a millionaire in emotions.

Originality is not seen in single words or even in sentences. Originality is the sum total of a man's thinking or his writing.

The genuine writer cannot ignore the fact that the family is losing its spiritual foundation.

Men want all women to lie down as whores and get up as virgins.

The second half of the twentieth century is a complete flop.

A soldier who serves an emperor has to have a uniform, and this also applies to a soldier who serves the Almighty.

Those who run around with women don't walk tightropes. They find it hard enough to crawl on the ground.

No matter how much you know a human being, you don't know him enough.

They still believe in God, the family, angels, witches, goblins, logic, clarity, punctuation, and other obsolete stuff.