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
Three characteristics a work of fiction must possess in order to be successful: 1. It must have a precise and suspenseful plot. 2. The author must feel a passionate urge to write it. 3. He must have the conviction, or at least the illusion, that he is the only one who can handle this particular theme.
A story to me must have some surprise...I must have a passion to write the story.
We write not only for children but also for their parents. They, too, are serious children.
Writing has power, but its power has no vector. Writers can stir the mind, but they can't direct it. Time changes things, God changes things, the dictators change things, but writers can't change anything.
The waste basket is the writer's best friend.
Originality is not seen in single words or even in sentences. Originality is the sum total of a man's thinking or his writing.
When a writer tries to explain too much, he's out of time before he begins.
Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression. The chasm is never completely bridged. We all have the conviction, perhaps illusory, that we have much more to say than appears on the paper.
When I was a little boy, they called me a liar, but now that I am grown up, they call me a writer.
Children read books, not reviews. They don't give a hoot about critics.
A good writer is basically a story teller, not a scholar or a redeemer of mankind.
Life is God's novel. Let him write it.
The waste basket is a writer's best friend.
We have to believe in free-will. We've got no choice.