Quotes from Leo Rosten

Two cheder students were discussing how hard and tiring their studies had become, and impulsively one blurted: "Let's run away!" "Run away? … Our fathers would catch up with us and give us a sound thrashing." "So we'll hit them back!" "What? Hit your father?! You must be mad. Have you forgotten the Commandment—always to honor your father and mother?" "Mmh…. So you hit my father and I'll hit yours.

The sense of differentiation is so acute in Yiddish that a word like, say, paskudnyak has no peer in any language I know for the vocal delineation of a nasty character. And Yiddish coins new names with ease for new personality types: a nudnik is a pest; a phudnik is a nudnik with a Ph.D.

Which is more important: money or wisdom? "Wisdom," says the philosopher. "Ha!" scoffs the cynic. "If wisdom is more important than money, why is it that the wise wait on the rich, and not the rich on the wise?" "Because," says the scholar, "the wise, being wise, understand the value of money; but the rich, being only rich, do not know the value of wisdom.

First-rate people hire first-rate people; second-rate people hire third-rate people.

Yiddish, the language which will ever bear witness to the violence and murder inflicted on us, bears the marks of our expulsions from land to land, the language which absorbed the wails of the fathers, the laments of the generations, the poison and bitterness of history, the language whose precious jewels are undried, uncongealed Jewish tears.

FOLK SAYINGS: "Nine wise men don't make a minyan, but ten cobblers do." "Nine saints do not make a minyan, but one ordinary man can by joining them.

Jewish dropout: a boy who didn't get his Ph.D. —ANON

George S. Kaufman, a prince of wit, once remarked that he liked to write with his collaborator, Moss Hart, because Hart was so lucky. "In my case," said Kaufman, "it's gelt by association.

Why is sholem used for both "hello" and "good-bye"? Israelis say: "Because we have so many problems that half the time we don't know whether we're coming or going.

The great rabbis did not "create" Halakha: what the rabbis did was to codify and clarify the legal teachings, adapting them to changing social conditions. "The Rabbinic Halakha," writes Judah Goldin, "protected legislation from inflexibility and society from fundamentalism

Centuries before Sigmund Freud published his Interpretation of Dreams (1900), the Jews had a saying: "In sleep, it is not the man who sins—but his dream.

He sat there, sighing and moaning and ruminating thusly: "Oh, if only the Holy One, blessed be His name, would give me ten thousand dollars, I promise I would give a thousand to the poor. Halevay! … And if the Holy One doesn't trust me, He can deduct the thousand in advance and just give me the balance.

At a mass meeting in Berlin, Adolf Hitler, in thrall to a most appalling aynredenish, shrieked, "And who is responsible for all our troubles?" Ben Cohen shouted, "The bicycle riders and the Jews!" Hitler looked up, astonished. "Why the bicycle riders?" "Why the Jews?" replied Cohen.

Chutzpa is that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan.

The melamed asked one of his young students, "Yussele, do you say your prayers before each meal?" "No, melamed." "What? You don't pray before each meal?!" "I don't have to. My mother's a good cook.

A woman, feeling sorry for a beggar who had come to her door, invited him in and offered him food. On the table was a pile of dark bread—and a few slices of challah. The shnorrer (beggar) promptly fell upon the challah. "There's black bread, too," the woman hinted. "I prefer challah." "But challah is much more expensive!" "Lady," said the beggar, "it's worth it." That, I think, is chutzpa.

I am informed by veterans of the Lower East Side that decalcomania pictures were called "cockamamies" because no one knew how to spell "decalcomania.

PROVERB: "A tavern can't corrupt a good man, and a synagogue can't reform a bad one.

Tis said that Hitler, disturbed by nightmares, called in a soothsayer. The seer consulted a crystal ball and said, "Ah, mighty Führer, it is foretold that you will die on a Jewish holiday." "Which one?" said Hitler with a scowl. "Any day you die will be a Jewish holiday.

The braggadocio aspect is important: a successful but modest man is ordinarily not called a k'nocker. A k'nocker is someone who works crossword puzzles—with a pen (especially if someone is watching).

FOLK SAYING: "Your health comes first; you can always hang yourself later.

In the Catskills, it is claimed that an ingenious gentleman crossbred a Guernsey with a Holstein—to get a Goldstein.

Jehovah Pronounced (in English) Jee-HO-vah. Not a Yiddish word. It is not a Hebrew word. It is some scribe's Latin transliteration of YHVH, to which the vowel marks for Adonai were added. The word appeared for the first time in an English text in 1530. God.

I wouldn't say 'Hello' to a paskudnyak like that!" "Did you ever hear of such a paskudnyak?" "That whole family is a collection of paskudnyaks." This word is one of the most greasily graphic, I think, in Yiddish. It offers the connoisseur three nice, long syllables, starting with a sibilant of reprehension and ending with a nasality of scorn. It adds cadence to contempt.