Quotes from Charles Reznikoff

The fingers of your thoughts are molding your face ceaselessly.

How shall we mourn you who are killed and wasted,sure that you would not die with your work unended,as if the iron scythe in the grass stops for a flower?

The miracle, of course, was not that the oil for the sacred light - in a little cruse - lasted as long as they say; but that the courage of the Maccabees lasted to this day: let that nourish my flickering spirit.

I like the streets of New York City, where I was born,better than these streets of palms.No doubt, my father liked his village in Ukrainiabetter than the streets of New York City;and my grandfather the city and its synagogue,where he once read aloud the holy books,better than the villagein which he dickered in the market-place.

By all means, then, let us have psalms and days of dedication anew to the old causes.

I have learnt the Hebrew blessing before eating bread;is there no blessing before reading Hebrew?

I will walk by myself and cure myself in the sunshine and the wind.

Moje my?li przypominaj? teraz starohebrajski - maj? tylko dwa czasy, przesz?y i przysz?y: by?em i b?d? z tob?.

Not the five feet of water to your chin but the inch above the tip of your nose.

The Old Man" The fish has too many bones and the watermelon too many seeds.

Beggar Woman" When I was four years old my mother led me to the park. The spring sunshine was not too warm. The street was almost empty. The witch in my fairy-book came walking along. She stooped to fish some mouldy grapes out of the gutter.

My thoughts have become like the ancient Hebrew in two tenses only, past and future - I was and I shall be with you.