Quotes from Chaim Potok

All a man has in the world is the now, the day and the hour where he is, because tomorrow is an entirely different world.

About accidents we do not have many choices. Our job is to make better the world God gave us. We are partners with God. One day you will understand. We have to work hard to make it a good world. But it is not an impossible job.

In "Culture Confrontation in Urban America," Potok uses the term Zwischenmensch to define himself and his experience of cultural conflict: "Urban wanderings that result in core-culture confrontations often shape a certain kind of individual. I call that individual a Zwischenmensch, a betweenperson. Such an individual will cross the boundaries of his or her own culture and embrace life-enhancing elements from alien worlds.

White is fearful to gaze upon for too long: it is the color of shrouds; it is all-color, the prism fused, undifferentiated, linked wave to wave and particle to particle.

If conquest is the only reason for a war, conquest from which only the ruler stands to gain, then people should refuse to fight. If, however, a war is to be fought for the defense of one's family and property, then men should fight with all their heart and might.

We cannot build our lives around sickness, Asher. We must have faith in the Master of the Universe.

A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant.

Question: What will happen after Cuba builds communism? Answer: It will start importing sugar. Question: What's the difference between capitalism and communism? Answer: Under capitalism, man exploits man; under communism, it's the other way around)

I will tell you what my father, may he rest in peace, once told me. Seeds must be sown everywhere. Only some will bear fruit. But there would not be the fruit from the few had the many not been sown. Do you understand, my Asher?

Virtuosity in Talmud was the achievement most sought after by every student of a yeshiva, for it was the automatic guarantee of a reputation for brilliance.

Did I know that the reason Hitler had been able to slaughter six million Jews without too much complaint from the world was that for two thousand years the world had been taught that Jews, not Romans, had killed that man?

An artist needs a broken world in order to have pieces to shape into art. . . . Comfort is death to art.

Art happens when what is seen becomes mixed with the inside of the person who is seeing it. If

The Master of the Universe has so created the world that everything that can be good can also be evil. It is mankind that makes a thing good or evil, Reuven, depending upon how we use the wonders we have been given.

A man does not always remain at the same stage. He is always ascending or descending. When he reaches the top, he must concern himself with the probability that he will fall. When he reaches the bottom, he must strive once again to climb to the top. That is the nature of man. When the soul of a man is in its darkest night, he must strive constantly for new light. When one thinks there is only an end, that is when one must struggle for the new beginning.

But I do not know how else the work can be done. To touch a person's heart, you must see a person's face. One cannot reach a soul through a telephone.

They are so rigid,' he said in a sudden angry voice. 'Why do they not see that this rigidity turns away our greatest minds?

And now you'll be able to sail right through to the end." "I've already written the end. It was the beginning I couldn't write." "The story you just told me is part of your beginning?" "It is the myself that predates what I am now.

An Austrian philosopher named Jean Améry, tortured by the Gestapo because of his activity with the Belgian resistance and then deported to Auschwitz because he was a Jew, wrote that anyone who has been tortured remains forever tortured and can never again be at ease in the world. One's faith in humanity is broken and can never be acquired again.

a blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something. A span of life is nothing, But the man who lves that span, he is something… A man must fill his life with meaning, meaning is not automatically given to life. It is hard work to fill one's life with meaning.

It was a large store and i did not like to go in it because its brightness was cold, like sunlight on distant ice.

Devorah told me, "Our daughter is grown," and there were tears in her eyes.

I've never known of a serious artist who was happy. Except maybe Rubens.

It's not a pretty world, Papa." "I've noticed," my father said softly.