Quotes by "Isaac Bashevis Singer"

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.

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

Children have no use for psychology. They detest sociology. They still believe in God, the family, angels, devils, witches, goblins, logic, clarity, punctuation, and other such obsolete stuff. When a book is boring, they yawn openly. They don't expect their writer to redeem humanity, but leave to adults such childish allusions.

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

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

The waste basket is a writer's best friend.

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.

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

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

If one knew the truth how could there be freedom? If hell and paradise were in the middle of the marketplace, everyone would be a saint.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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