Quotes from Naomi Ragen

fact that she couldn't understand herself.

tantalizing possibilities. She hesitated, feeling trapped by a combination of her own desire to try everything, and a

And so began her own life, a secret life. She had no idea where it would lead her, but only that she had no choice. Once you see, you cannot unsee.

My Torah is also the greatest,' said the rav, 'but those who are mean-spirited have yet to use it.

The most precious thing every human being has in this life is the freedom to choose how to live.

The only cure for grief, someone had once told her, was love.

This is the deck of cards you've been dealt. Now you have to deal with it.

How do they manage to go on living?.....By loving life. And-in spite of everything-by loving God. By having enough faith to start over again and again; enough faith to risk having our hearts break all over again. That's the true meaning of faith. It's the deepest kind of heroism.

What is wrong with life is human memory, she thought. What is the point of life and history--all that human beings sacrifice and endure, overcome and rejoice over--if we do not remember? What point are the centuries, years, months, hours, minutes, if they slip through our fingers, if we learn nothing?

When there was nothing left to gain, nothing more to lose, when one was face-to-face with the moment of greatest despair, to speak to God in love and thanks, rather than to curse Him and one's fate, was the ultimate choice of any human creature, and perhaps the ultimate expression of one's humanity.

So you see, we are not free to choose our fate. There is a yoke to be borne and freedom is only an illusion. I am not free. God has put me here on earth for a reason.

He who gives life, nourishes life. He listens, this I can tell you. Whatever happens, He's listening. He doesn't always answer right away. He doesn't always say yes. But He's listening. This much I promise you.

To love human beauty is to love something whose very existence is doomed. Love should be based on permanence. On solid, secure things.....Love of God. Love of good deeds. Love of country and family. Love of ideas.

self-important western journalists who'd given up their sacred trust to become cheerleaders for trendy causes, the way communist journalists had once been cheerleaders for the government...They were depriving the free world of its most valuable weapon in condemning and exposing the worst human scourge since Nazism: the targeting and murder of civilians to achieve political and religious ends.

Like most Eastern Europeans, he was not amenable to the socialist ethic so many Israeli leftists still romanticized, despite the proven failure of Communism to solve any of the world's problems and its unenviable success in inventing many new ones.

Suffering did different things to different people...Some souls became tempered, unshakable in their faith, while others became twisted and mis-shapen, throwing off all connection to God.

The most terrible thing about terrorism, the thing that people fond of saying "one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist" didn't get, was that even siding with the terrorists gave you no immunity. The terrorist never knew his victims, and didn't give a damn. When you sided with them, you were taking sides against yourself.

So many hypocrites, people busy preaching acceptance and tolerance but hating and rejecting everyone who isn't exactly like them.

Books were like old friends, with their worn covers and well-thumbed pages..

this was the only answer she'd ever found to evil: to go on living and to help others live in happiness.

Elizabeth feared that because of her looks, she was doomed to meet men with unreasonably high self-images and no depth, the kind that dogged movie actresses and models. Men who were superficial to begin with, and existentially boring in that which they sought, and thus ultimately unsatisfying and unworthy of respect of interest.

Of course, everyone had heard of the Ten Commandments, but these things, so much subtler, so embedded in the stuff of everyday human life and human interactions--this was the ultimate goal of all Jewish life: justice, kindness, charity, Holiness.

I used to think religious people were kinder, nicer, had better characters, but I found out they're just like everybody else, just people. Some are better, some are worse. There are sincere ones . . . but also the opposite . . .

So many mistakes. So many bad choices. So many tragedies and hurts brought to innocent people with the best of intentions or with no intentions at all. It was so hard to be human. It was so hard to be alive.