Isaac Bashevis Singer

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

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

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

Sometimes love is stronger than a man's convictions.

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

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.

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

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

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

The waste basket is the writer's best friend.

The analysis of character is the highest human entertainment.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

When you betray somebody else you also betray yourself.

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

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

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

Kindness I've discovered is everything in life.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.