Isaac Bashevis Singer
Isaac Bashevis Singer
Isaac Bashevis Singerwas a Polish-born Jewish author in Yiddish, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978. The Polish form of his birth name was Icek Hersz Zynger. He used his mother's first name in an initial literary pseudonym, Izaak Baszewis, which he later expanded. He was a leading figure in the Yiddish literary movement, writing and publishing only in Yiddish. He was also awarded two U.S. National Book Awards, one in Children's Literature for his memoir A Day Of...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth14 July 1904
CountryUnited States of America
Various philosophers and religious leaders tried to convince their disciples and followers that animals are nothing more than machines without a soul, without feelings. However, anyone who has ever lived with an animal-be it a dog, a bird, or even a mouse-knows that this theory is a brazen lie, invented to justify cruelty.
It is a general rule that when the grain of truth cannot be found, men will swallow great helpings of falsehood.
Men want all women to lie down as whores and get up as virgins.
I was brought up to believe in free will. Although I came to doubt all revelation, I can never accept the idea that the Universe is a physical or chemical accident, a result of blind evolution. Even though I learned to recognize the lies, the clichés and the idolatries of the human mind, I still cling to some truths which I think all of us might accept some day.
When I was a little boy, they called me a liar, but now that I am grown up, they call me a writer.
The waste basket is a writer's best friend.
We have to believe in free-will. We've got no choice.
The New England conscience doesn't keep you from doing what you shouldn't -- it just keeps you from enjoying it.
Actually, the true story of a person's life can never be written. It is beyond the power of literature. The full tale of any life would be both utterly boring and utterly unbelievable.
One can find in the Yiddish tongue and in the Yiddish spirit expressions of pious joy, lust for life, longing for the Messiah, patience and deep appreciation of human individuality.
Children have no use for psychology. They detest sociology. They still believe in God, the family, angels, devils, witches, goblins, logic, clarity, punctuation, and other such obsolete stuff. When a book is boring, they yawn openly. They don't expect their writer to redeem humanity, but leave to adults such childish allusions.
Our knowledge is a little island in a great ocean of nonknowledge.
No doubt the world is entirely an imaginary world, but it is only once removed from the true world.
Heaven and earth conspire that everything which has been, be rooted and reduced to dust. Only the dreamers, who dream while awake, call back the shadows of the past and braid nets from the unspun thread.