Chaim Potok
Chaim Potok
Chaim Potokwas an American Jewish author and rabbi. Potok is most famous for his first book The Chosen, which was listed on The New York Times’ best seller list for 39 weeks and sold more than 3,400,000 copies...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth17 February 1929
CityBuffalo, NY
CountryUnited States of America
bears fruit seeds
Seeds must be sown everywhere. Only some will bear fruit. But there would not be the fruit from the few had the many not been sown
creativity thinking people
I think most serious writers, certainly in the modern period, use their own lives or the lives of people close to them or lives they have heard about as the raw material for their creativity.
self needs gothic
I won't talk to you about my family and you won't talk to me about yours. Family talk is either boring or self-pitying. Or it's Gothic, like a Faulkner novel. Who needs to talk about it? It's enough to live it.
drinking sleep men
He taught them that the purpose of a man is to make his life holy--every aspect of his life: eating, drinking praying, sleeping. God is everywhere, he told them, and if it seems at times that He is hidden from us, it is only because we have not yet learned to seek Him correctly.
men flames evil
A man is born into this world with only a tiny spark of goodness in him. The spark is God, it is the soul; the rest is ugliness and evil, a shell. The spark must be guarded like a treasure, it must be nurtured, it must be fanned into flame. It must learn to seek out other sparks, it must dominate the shell. Anything can be a shell, Reuven. Anything. Indifference, laziness, brutality, and genius. Yes, even a great mind can be a shell and choke the spark.
teacher true-friend talking
Reuven listen to me. The Talmud says that a person should do two things for himself. One is to acquire a teacher. Do you remember the other." "Choose a friend," I said. "Yes. You know what a friend is, Reuven? A Greek philosopher said that two people who are true friends are like two bodies with one soul." I nodded. "Reuven, if you can, make Danny Saunders your friend." "I like him a lot, abba." "No. Listen to me. I am not talking about only liking him. I am telling you to make him your friend and to let him make you his friend.
world way unfortunate
No one knows he is fortunate until he becomes unfortunate, that's the way the world is.
america russia carnivals
In Russia I went to a great yeshiva, and in America I work in a carnival.
two silence coins
A word is worth one coin, silence is worth two
book written revising
I'm constantly revising. Once the book is written and typed, I go through the entire draft again.
inspirational needs
We need to listen to one another.
culture impossible antagonism
It is impossible to fuse totally with a culture for which you feel a measure of antagonism.
relationship thinking guarantees-that
I think that to a very great extent we are partners with the divine in this enterprise called history. That is an ongoing relationship, and there is absolutely no guarantee that things will automatically work out to our best advantage.
names film
Yes, there is some thought about making a film of My Name Is Asher Lev.