Quotes from Isaac Bashevis Singer

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.

People often say that humans have always eaten animals, as if this is a justification for continuing the practice. According to this logic, we should not try to prevent people from murdering other people, since this has also been done since the earliest of times.

The second half of the twentieth century is a complete flop.

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.

The waste basket is a writer's best friend.

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.

A good writer is basically a story-teller, not a scholar or a redeemer of mankind.

In their behavior toward creatures, all men are Nazis. Human beings see oppression vividly when they're the victims. Otherwise they victimize blindly and without a thought.

As often as Herman had witnessed the slaughter of animals and fish, he always had the same thought: in their behavior toward creatures, all men were Nazis.

Man is a disgusting thing. If you beat him he starts to scream, but if it is the other one who is beaten, then he constructs a theory.

Originality is not seen in single words or even in sentences. Originality is the sum total of a man's thinking or his writing.

What nature delivers to us is never stale. Because what nature creates has eternity in it.

It is a general rule that when the grain of truth cannot be found, men will swallow great helpings of falsehood.

We have to believe in free-will. We've got no choice.

The greatness of art is not to find what is common but what is unique.

I get up every morning with a desire to do some creative work. This desire is made of the same stuff as the sexual desire, the desire to make money, or any other desire.

From borrowing one gets poorer and from work one gets richer.

I don't invent characters because the Almightly has already invented millions... Just like experts at fingerprints do not create fingerprints but learn how to read them.

When literature becomes overly erudite, it means that interest in the art has gone and curiosity about the artist is what's important. It becomes a kind of idolatry.

There is no death. How can there be death if everything is part of the Godhead? The soul never dies and the body is never really alive.

The waste basket is a writer's best friend.

Life is God's novel. Let him write it.

What nature creates has eternity in it.

They still believe in God, the family, angels, witches, goblins, logic, clarity, punctuation, and other obsolete stuff.