Isaac Bashevis Singer Quotes

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

But if we have people who have the power to tell a story, there will always be readers.

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

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.

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.

When you betray somebody else, you also betray yourself.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Slaughter and justice cannot dwell together.

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

What a strange power there is in clothing.

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.

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

Literature is the memory of humanity.

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.

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.

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

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.

All that God does is for the good.

It is a general rule that when the grain of truth cannot be found, men will swallow great helpings of falsehood.

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

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

A Marxist has never written a good novel.

The waste basket is the writer's best friend.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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