Isaac Bashevis Singer quotes:

The very essence of literature is the war between emotion and intellect, between life and death. When literature becomes too intellectual - when it begins to ignore the passions, the emotions - it becomes sterile, silly, and actually without substance.

People often say that humans have always eaten animals, as if this is a justification for continuing the practice. According to this logic, we should not try to prevent people from murdering other people, since this has also been done since the earliest of times.

If Moses had been paid newspaper rates for the Ten Commandments, he might have written the Two Thousand Commandments.

I did not become a vegetarian for my health, I did it for the health of the chickens.

A good writer is basically a story teller, not a scholar or a redeemer of mankind.

A story to me means a plot where there is some surprise. Because that is how life is - full of surprises.

What nature delivers to us is never stale. Because what nature creates has eternity in it.

Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression.

We all play chess with Fate as partner. He makes a move, we make a move. He tries to checkmate us in three moves, we try to prevent it. We know we can't win, but we're driven to give him a good fight.

For those who are willing to make an effort, great miracles and wonderful treasures are in store.

I am thankful, of course, for the prize and thankful to God for each story, each idea, each word, each day.

Kindness, I've discovered, is everything in life.

If you keep saying things are going to be bad, you have a good chance of being a prophet.

The waste basket is the writer's best friend.

When you betray somebody else, you also betray yourself.

If you keep on saying things are going to be bad, you have a good chance of being a prophet.

When I was a little boy, they called me a liar, but now that I am grown up, they call me a writer.

Our knowledge is a little island in a great ocean of nonknowledge.

Heaven and earth conspire that everything which has been, be rooted and reduced to dust. Only the dreamers, who dream while awake, call back the shadows of the past and braid nets from the unspun thread.

Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression. The chasm is never completely bridged. We all have the conviction, perhaps illusory, that we have much more to say than appears on the paper.

There will be no justice as long as man will stand with a knife or with a gun and destroy those who are weaker than he is.

When a day passes, it is no longer there. What remains of it? Nothing more than a story. If stories weren't told or books weren't written, man would live like the beasts, only for the day. The whole world, all human life, is one long story.

Some of my cronies call me a pessimist and a decadent, but there is always a background of faith behind resignation.

Doubt is part of all religion. All the religious thinkers were doubters.

The analysis of character is the highest human entertainment.

Literature has neglected the old and their emotions. The novelists never told us that in love, as in other matters, the young are just beginners and that the art of loving matures with age and experience.

What a strange power there is in clothing.

When a human being kills an animal for food, he is neglecting his own hunger for justice.

I don't invent characters because the Almightly has already invented millions... Just like experts at fingerprints do not create fingerprints but learn how to read them.

What do these children do without storybooks?" Naftali asked. And Reb Zebulun replied: "They have to make do. Storybooks aren't bread. You can live without them." I couldn't live without them." Naftali said.

We must believe in free will, we have no choice.

They still believe in God, the family, angels, witches, goblins, logic, clarity, punctuation, and other obsolete stuff.

Children read books, not reviews. They don't give a hoot about critics.

No technological achievements can mitigate the disappointment of modern man, his loneliness, his feeling of inferiority, and his fear of war, revolution and terror. Not only has our generation lost faith in Providence but also in man himself, in his institutions and often in those who are nearest to him.

No lepidopterist's collection in the entire world...full if iridescent wings, is worth the life of a single butterfly.

Life is God's novel. Let him write it.

As often as Herman had witnessed the slaughter of animals and fish, he always had the same thought: in their behaviour towards creatures, all men were Nazis. The smugness with which man could do with other species as he pleased exemplified the most extreme racist theories, the principle that might is right.

I know as a writer how valuable a tool is the wastebasket. Perhaps God throws away many experiments before He finds the right expression. Perhaps we are the discards - or we could be the part He keeps. This mystery is what keeps us all going, to see what happens in the next chapter.

In many ways, astrology, numerology and palmistry are corruptions of the occult because they have attempted to make a practice out of something that is essentially imaginative.

Man prays for mercy, but is unwilling to extend it to others. Why then should man expect mercy from God? It is unfair to expect something that you are not willing to give.

Various philosophers and religious leaders tried to convince their disciples and followers that animals are nothing more than machines without a soul, without feelings. However, anyone who has ever lived with an animal-be it a dog, a bird, or even a mouse-knows that this theory is a brazen lie, invented to justify cruelty.

Doubt is part of all religion. All the religious thinkers were doubters

A rock was sticking out of the water, jagged and pointed, covered with moss--a remnant of the Ice Age. It had withstood the rains, the snows, the frost, the heat. It was afraid of no one. It did not need redemption, it had already been redeemed.

Originality is not seen in single words or even in sentences. Originality is the sum total of a man's thinking or his writing.

Every human character appears only once in the history of human beings. And so does every event of love.

Shoulders are from God, and burdens too.

I believe in God but people are liars. It's those people who say they are appointed by God who I don't believe in.

As long as people will shed the blood of innocent creatures there can be no peace, no liberty, no harmony between people. Slaughter and justice cannot dwell together.

There is great treasure there behind our skull and this is true about all of us. This little treasure has great, great powers, and I would say we only have learnt a very, very small part of what it can do.

Slaughter and justice cannot dwell together.

As often as Herman had witnessed the slaughter of animals and fish, he always had the same thought: in their behavior toward creatures, all men were Nazis.

Even in the worm that crawls in the earth there glows a divine spark. When you slaughter a creature, you slaughter God.

Sometimes love is stronger than a man's convictions.

The truth is that what the great religions preached, the Yiddish-speaking people of the ghettos practiced day in and day out. They were the people of The Book in the truest sense of the word. They knew of no greater joy than the study of man and human relations, which they called Torah, Talmud, Mussar, Cabala.

In relation to them (animals), all people are Nazis for the animals, it is an eternal Treblinka.

Writing has power, but its power has no vector. Writers can stir the mind, but they can't direct it. Time changes things, God changes things, the dictators change things, but writers can't change anything.

If there would come a voice from God saying, 'I'm against vegetarianism!' I would say, 'Well, I am for it!' This is how strongly I feel in this regard.

To be a vegetarian is to disagree - to disagree with the course of things today... starvation, cruelty - we must make a statement against these things. Vegetarianism is my statement. And I think it's a strong one.

We are all God's creatures-that we pray to God for mercy and justice while we continue to eat the flesh of animals that are slaughtered on our account is not consistent.

To me the Yiddish language and the conduct of those who spoke it are identical.

The Yiddish mentality is not haughty. It does not take victory for granted. It does not demand and command but it muddles through, sneaks by, smuggles itself amidst the powers of destruction, knowing somewhere that God's plan for Creation is still at the very beginning.

One can find in the Yiddish tongue and in the Yiddish spirit expressions of pious joy, lust for life, longing for the Messiah, patience and deep appreciation of human individuality.

There is a quiet humor in Yiddish and a gratitude for every day of life, every crumb of success, each encounter of love... In a figurative way, Yiddish is the wise and humble language of us all, the idiom of a frightened and hopeful humanity.

The Jewish people have been in exile for 2,000 years; they have lived in hundreds of countries, spoken hundreds of languages and still they kept their old language, Hebrew. They kept their Aramaic, later their Yiddish; they kept their books; they kept their faith.

The New England conscience doesn't keep you from doing what you shouldn't - it just keeps you from enjoying it.

The second half of the twentieth century is a complete flop.

We write not only for children but also for their parents. They, too, are serious children.

We have to believe in free-will. We've got no choice.

The greatness of art is not to find what is common but what is unique.

We know what a person thinks not when he tells us what he thinks, but by his actions.

What do they know-all these scholars, all these philosophers, all the leaders of the world - about such as you? They have convinced themselves that man, the worst transgressor of all the species, is the crown of creation. All other creatures were created merely to provide him with food, pelts, to be tormented, exterminated. In relation to them, all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka.

In their behavior toward creatures, all men are Nazis. Human beings see oppression vividly when they're the victims. Otherwise they victimize blindly and without a thought.

Two important things are to have a genuine interest in people and to be kind to them. Kindness, I've discovered, is everything.

Night is a time of rigor, but also of mercy. There are truths which one can see only when it's dark

There are 500 reasons I write for children.... Children read books, not reviews. They don't give a hoot about the critics.... They don't read to free themselves of guilt, to quench their thirst for rebellion, or to get rid of alienation. They still believe in God, the family, angels, devils, witches, goblins, logic, clarity, punctuation, and other such obsolete stuff.... They don't expect their beloved writer to redeem humanity. Young as they are, they know that it is not in his power. Only the adults have such childish illusions.

Man is a disgusting thing. If you beat him he starts to scream, but if it is the other one who is beaten, then he constructs a theory.

The more you see what other people do, the more you learn about yourself.

There is a permanent amnesia planted in us, which just as we keep forgetting our dreams, we sometimes keep on forgetting our reality.

Whenever I'm in trouble, I pray. And because I'm in trouble all of the time, I pray almost constantly.

A Marxist has never written a good novel.

All that God does is for the good.

If you keep on saying things are going to be bad, you have a good chance of being a prophet... [at least for your own situation. Blind optimism is just as foolish. The solution is a rigorously balanced, rational outlook.]

There will never be any peace in the world as long as we eat animals.

There is no death. How can there be death if everything is part of the Godhead? The soul never dies and the body is never really alive.

I have heard from my father and mother all the answers that faith in God could offer to those who doubt and search for the truth. In our home and in many other homes the eternal questions were more actual than the latest news in the Yiddish newspaper. In spite of all the disenchantments and all my skepticism I believe that the nations can learn much from those Jews, their way of thinking, their way of bringing up children, their finding happiness where others see nothing but misery and humiliation.

When a human kills an animal for food, he is neglecting his own hunger for justice. Man prays for mercy, but is unwilling to extend it to others. Why should man then expect mercy from God? It's unfair to expect something that you are not willing to give. It is inconsistent. I can never accept inconsistency or injustice. Even if it comes from God. If there would come a voice from God saying, "I'm against vegetarianism!" I would say, "Well, I am for it!" This is how strongly I feel in this regard.

When a writer tries to explain too much, he's out of time before he begins.

If we have people with the power to tell a story, there will always be readers.

While facts never become obsolete or stale, commentaries always do.

Children?have no use for psychology.

Three characteristics a work of fiction must possess in order to be successful: 1. It must have a precise and suspenseful plot. 2. The author must feel a passionate urge to write it. 3. He must have the conviction, or at least the illusion, that he is the only one who can handle this particular theme.

There is a plan to this universe. There is a high intelligence, maybe even a purpose, but it's given to us on the installment plan.

What happened was no accident. Everything was preordained. True, the will was free, but heaven also made its ordinances.

Shoulders are from God and burdens too.

All is foreseen but the choice is given.

Whatever doesn't really happen is dreamed at night. It happens to one if it doesn't happen to another, tomorrow if not today, or a century hence if not next year.

One has to trust that God knows how to manage the world.

In God's mill even chaff becomes flour.

I get up every morning with a desire to do some creative work. This desire is made of the same stuff as the sexual desire, the desire to make money, or any other desire.

It is written, better to be a fool all your days than for one hour to be evil. You are not a fool. They are the fools. For he who causes his neighbor to feel shame loses Paradise himself.

Each soul must accomplish its task, or it would not have been sent here.

How can we speak of right and justice if we take an innocent creature and shed its blood? How can we pray to God for mercy if we ourselves have no mercy? Nobel laureate in literature.

While the poet entertains he continues to search for eternal truths, for the essence of being. In his own fashion he tries to solve the riddle of time and change, to find an answer to suffering, to reveal love in the very abyss of cruelty and injustice. Strange as these words may sound I often play with the idea that when all the social theories collapse and wars and revolutions leave humanity in utter gloom, the poet--whom Plato banned from his Republic--may rise up to save us all.

What's the good of not believing? Today it's your wife you don't believe; tomorrow it's God Himself you won't take stock in.

Men want all women to lie down as whores and get up as virgins.

When literature becomes overly erudite, it means that interest in the art has gone and curiosity about the artist is what's important. It becomes a kind of idolatry.

Of course I believe in free will. Do we have a choice?

There must be a way for man to attain all possible pleasures, all the powers and knowledge that nature can grant him, and still serve God--a God who speaks in deeds, not in words, and whose vocabulary is the Cosmos.

I believe in free will. I have no choice.

When the time comes I will go joyfully. Whatever may be there, it will be real, without complication, without ridicule, without deception.

As much as I can give of myself I give of myself. There's no reason why not. And when I have to hide something, I let the character speak.

The pessimism of the creative person is not decadence but a mighty passion for the redemption of man.

Literature is the memory of humanity.

Actually, the true story of a person's life can never be written. It is beyond the power of literature. The full tale of any life would be both utterly boring and utterly unbelievable.

Sometimes you have the feeling that some little imp is standing behind you and dictating to you, but he gives it to you slowly, drop by drop.

When a day passes, it is no longer there. What remains of it? Nothing more than a story. If stories weren't told or books weren't written, man would live like the beasts, only for the day.

In the history of old Jewish literature there was never any basic difference between the poet and the prophet. Our ancient poetry often became law and a way of life.

Every body resisted (the slaughterer) in its own fashion, tried to escape and seemed to argue with the Creator to its last breath.

The genuine writer cannot ignore the fact that the family is losing its spiritual foundation.

The soul never dies and the body is never really alive.