Quotes from Isaac Bashevis Singer

But basically he remained the same: without belief in himself or in the human race; a fatalistic hedonist who lived in pre-suicidal gloom. Religions lied.

From his reading he knew that the masters of this world were all evil, knew nothing of justice, and always sided with the strong and the false.

If time is just a form of perception, or a category of reason, the past is as present as today: Cain continues to murder Abel.

Somewhere I had had a trace of faith in free will, but this morning I felt sure that man possessed as much choice as the clockwork of my wristwatch or the fly that stopped on the edge of my saucer. The same powers were driving Hitler, Stalin, the Pope, the Rabbi of Gur, a molecule in the center of the earth, and a galaxy billions of lightyears distant from the Milky Way. Blind powers? Seeing powers? It did not matter any more. We were fated to play our little games and to be crushed.

Kindness, I've discovered, is everything.

He had shown me letters he had received not only from Kafka but from Jakob Wassermann, Stefan Zweig, Romain Rolland, Ilya Ehrenburg, and Martin Buber.

Schopenhauer was right. It's all that blind will to prolong the human tragedy.

In the year 1648, the wicked Ukrainian hetman, Bogdan Chmelnicki, and his followers besieged the city of Zamos? but could not take it, because it was strongly fortified; the rebelling haidamak peasants moved on to spread havoc in Tomaszów, Bilgoraj, KraÅ›nik, Turbin, Frampol - and in Goray, too, the town that lay in the midst of the hills at the end of the world.

The years separated them as effectively as a partition.

I've already told you that I don't consider love a sport.

Even eternity doesn't last forever

The talk about culture and justice was more revolting than the barbarism and injustice.

The rabbi thought he saw an expression of perplexity in the golem's eyes. It seemed to the rabbi that his eyes were asking, Who am I? Why am I here? What is the secret of my being? Rabbi Leib often saw the same bewilderment in the eyes of newborn children and even in the eyes of animals.

Comparada con aquella luminosidad, hasta la muerte parecía una simple pesadilla. Ni el cielo ni el río ni las dunas estaban muertos. Todo vivía, la tierra, el sol y cada piedra. El verdadero enigma no era la muerte, sino el sufrimiento.

What use is my life to me? I envy the dead. All day I envy them. I can't even earn my death.

Now I'm entirely without hope, and one dies of that more quickly than of cancer

I can no longer be fooled by paint and perfume.

That, by the way, was Kafka's problem when it came to writing: he saw all the defects—his own and everyone else's.

When I think that Kafka loved this creature, dreamed about her, I am ashamed for man and his illusions.

If men had their way, every woman would lie down a prostitute and get up a virgin.

Kafka believed in the golem, and even that the future might well bring another one.

A slit throat cannot be sewn together again.

Più volte ho pensato che per quanto riguarda il suo comportamento verso gli animali, ogni uomo è un nazista.

The worst dog gets the best bone. Why is it?