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
In relation to them (animals), all people are Nazis for the animals, it is an eternal Treblinka.
If we have people with the power to tell a story, there will always be readers.
The more you see what other people do, the more you learn about yourself.
What do they know-all these scholars, all these philosophers, all the leaders of the world - about such as you? They have convinced themselves that man, the worst transgressor of all the species, is the crown of creation. All other creatures were created merely to provide him with food, pelts, to be tormented, exterminated. In relation to them, all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka.
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.
Of course I believe in free will. Do we have a choice?