Quotes from Chaim Potok

The gift had caused me to steal. I hated the gift. But I wanted to do the painting.

It hurts a father to see a son this way. It makes no difference what age the son is; it hurts.

I call that ambiguity," I said. "Riddles, puzzles, double meanings, lost possibilities, the dark side to the light, the light side to the darkness, different perspectives on the same things. Nothing in this whole world has only one side to it. Everything is like a kaleidoscope. That's what I'm trying to capture in my art. That's what I mean by ambiguity.

I hated what I had drawn in that sketchbook. I should not have done it. Why had he asked me to do it? I hated the drawings. They were lies, stagnant creations done to someone else's demand, and I despised them.

As you grow older you will discover that the most important things that will happen to you will often come as a result of silly things, as you call them—'ordinary things' is a better expression. That is the way the world is.

A chi servono le storie di un ennesimo ebreo? Servono a me. Senza storie non esiste nulla. Le storie sono la memoria del mondo. Senza storie il passato viene cancellato.

The paintings had a strange quality: they were figurative but there were no figures in them. They looked as if they might suddenly dissolve.

We have our faith. We have our work. Our work is to bring God into this world. Look what has been done to this world and its people in this Godless century. It is a horror. Our task is to redeem this horror. We cannot redeem it by offering people ambiguity." "I try to redeem it through my art." "An artist redeems through his art?" He seemed astonished by that idea. "Acts redeem, Asher. Acts." "Art is also acts.

Without man, what is God? And without God, what is man? Everyone needs the help of someone to complete the work of Creation that is never truly completed. Everyone.

To remember is not a punishment, Asher. To remember is a victory against the sitra achra, against Hitler, may his name be erased. The film is a sanctification of the name of God. Why should I not participate in it?

Do not expect redemption if you enter the world of art. Redemption is death to art. Tranquillity is the poison the artist takes when he is ready to give up his art.

an artist, too, must see the world whole, he must somehow learn to see during the blinks, he must see where no one else can see, he must see the connections, the betweennesses in the world. Even if the connections are ugly and evil, the artist must learn to see and record them.

I sat near a window in our little synagogue and looked out at the large church and wondered how a statue whose face was so full of love could be worshipped by someone whose heart was so full of hate.

As a species we are always hungry for new knowledge.

The span of a man's life - that is nothing. But what a man makes of that span - that is something. A man must make his own meaning for life. Meaning is not automatically given to life.

A man must fill his life with meaning, meaning is not automatically given to life.

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.

I'm not altogether certain that a fundamentalism of necessity has to argue that it is the only reading of the human experience in order to stay alive.

Forgive me…for everything…I have done…A - a wiser father…may have done differently. I am not…wise.

How will I teach this mind what it is to have a soul? How will I teach this mind to understand pain? How will I teach it to want to take on another person's suffering?

The Talmud says that a person should do two things for himself. One is to acquire a teacher. Do you remember the other?' 'Choose a friend.' I said.

There are better ways to teach a child compassion.

What does it mean to have to suffer so much if our lives are nothing more than the blink of an eye? … I learned a long time ago, Reuven, that a blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something.

When a person comes to talk to you, you should be patient and listen. Especially if he has hurt you in any way.