Quotations by:
    Singer, Isaac Bashevis

Shoulders are from God and burdens, too.

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991) Polish-American writer, Nobel laureate (b. Icek-Hersz Zynger)

“Gimpel the Fool” (1953) [tr. Bellow (1953)]

Full text.

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

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991) Polish-American writer, Nobel laureate (b. Icek-Hersz Zynger)

(Attributed)

1. Children read books, not reviews. They don’t give a hoot about the critics.
2. Children don’t read to find their identity.
3. They don’t read to free themselves from guilt, to quench their thirst for rebellion, or to get rid of alienation.
4. They have no use for psychology.
5. They detest sociology.
6. They don’t try to understand Kafka or Finnegan’s Wake.
7. They still believe in God, the family, angels, devils, witches, goblins, logic, clarity, punctuation, and other obsolete stuff.
8. They love interesting stories, not commentary, guides, or footnotes.
9. When a book’s boring, they yawn openly, without any shame or fear of authority.
10. 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.

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991) Polish-American writer, Nobel laureate (b. Icek-Hersz Zynger)

A Day of Pleasure: Stories of a Boy Growing Up in Warsaw, “Why I Write for Children” (1970)

Often misattributed to Singer's Nobel lecture; the work was included in a book edition of his speech (1978).

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

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991) Polish-American writer, Nobel laureate (b. Icek-Hersz Zynger)

New York Times (3 Dec 1978)

When you betray somebody else, you also betray yourself.

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991) Polish-American writer, Nobel laureate (b. Icek-Hersz Zynger)

Interview with R. Burgin, New York Times Magazine (26 Nov 1978)

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

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991) Polish-American writer, Nobel laureate (b. Icek-Hersz Zynger)

Interview with Richard Burgin, New York Times Magazine (26 Nov 1978)

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.

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991) Polish-American writer, Nobel laureate (b. Icek-Hersz Zynger)

Interview with Richard Burgin, New York Times Magazine (26 Nov 1978)

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

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991) Polish-American writer, Nobel laureate (b. Icek-Hersz Zynger)

Interview, “Isaac Singer’s Promised City,” City Journal (Summer 1997)

Singer made this ironic statement on numerous occasions.

Although I came to doubt all revelation, I can never accept the idea that the Universe is a physical or chemical accident, a result of blind evolution. Even though I learned to recognize the lies, the clichés and the idolatries of the human mind, I still cling to some truths which I think all of us might accept some day. 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.

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991) Polish-American writer, Nobel laureate (b. Icek-Hersz Zynger)

Nobel Lecture (8 Dec 1978)

Full text.

The storyteller and poet of our time, as in any other time, must be an entertainer of the spirit in the full sense of the word, not just a preacher of social or political ideals. There is no paradise for bored readers and no excuse for tedious literature that does not intrigue the reader, uplift him, give him the joy and the escape that true art always grants.

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991) Polish-American writer, Nobel laureate (b. Icek-Hersz Zynger)

Nobel Lecture (8 Dec 1978)

Full text.