Quote

A writer is a strange instrument of our species, a harp of sorts, fine-tuned to the dark contradictions of life.

Chaim Potok

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Chaim Potok
Age: 73 †
Born: 1929
Born: February 17
Died: 2002
Died: July 23
Author
Bible Translator
Novelist
Playwright
Rabbi
Screenwriter
Translator
Writer
The Bronx
New York City
Herman Harold Potok
Species
Harp
Writer
Tuned
Fine
Harps
Strange
Contradictions
Dark
Sorts
Life
Contradiction
Instrument
Instruments

More quotes by Chaim Potok

Image
Each generation thinks it fights new battles. But the battles are the same. Only the people are different.
Chaim Potok
Image
Something that is yours forever is never precious
Chaim Potok
Image
Two people who are true friends are like two bodies with one soul
Chaim Potok
Image
I do not know what evil is when it comes to art. I only know what is good art and what is bad art.
Chaim Potok
Image
I'm not altogether certain that a fundamentalism of necessity has to argue that it is the only reading of the human experience in order to stay alive.
Chaim Potok
Image
It is impossible to fuse totally with a culture for which you feel a measure of antagonism.
Chaim Potok
Image
My name is Asher Lev... I am a traitor, an apostate, a self-hater, an inflicter of shame upon my family, my friends, my people also, I am a mocker of ideas sacred to Christians, a blasphemous manipulator of modes and forms revered by Gentiles for two thousand years.
Chaim Potok
Image
I won't talk to you about my family and you won't talk to me about yours. Family talk is either boring or self-pitying. Or it's Gothic, like a Faulkner novel. Who needs to talk about it? It's enough to live it.
Chaim Potok
Image
If I had a plot that was all set in advance, why would I want go through the agony of writing the novel? A novel is a kind of exploration and discovery, for me at any rate.
Chaim Potok
Image
It's always easier to learn something than to use what you've learned. . . . You're alone when you're learning. But you always use it on other people. It's different when there are other people involved.
Chaim Potok
Image
Each work seems to give me the most trouble at the time I'm working on it.
Chaim Potok
Image
Seeds must be sown everywhere. Only some will bear fruit. But there would not be the fruit from the few had the many not been sown
Chaim Potok
Image
Come, let us have some tea and continue to talk about happy things.
Chaim Potok
Image
Honest differences of opinion should never be permitted to destroy a friendship.
Chaim Potok
Image
As you grow older you will discover that the most important things that will happen to you will often come as a result of silly things, as you call them --ordinary things is a better expression. That is the way the world is.
Chaim Potok
Image
A book is sent out into the world, and there is no way of fully anticipating the responses it will elicit. Consider the responses called forth by the Bible, Homer, Shakespeare - let alone contemporary poetry or a modern novel.
Chaim Potok
Image
Art begins . . . when someone interprets, when someone sees the world through his own eyes. Art happens when what is seen becomes mixed with the inside of the person who is seeing it.
Chaim Potok
Image
I get up around 6:30. I work from about 8:00 to 1:00, take a break for lunch, work again until about 5:00, and then go for a long walk and have dinner. Then, if my wife and I have no previous plans, we decide what to do for the evening.
Chaim Potok
Image
A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant.
Chaim Potok
Image
I went away and cried to the Master of the Universe, What have you done to me? A mind like this I need for a son? A heart I need for a son, a soul I need for a son, compassion I want from my son, righteousness, mercy, strength to suffer and carry pain, that I want from my son, not a mind without a soul!
Chaim Potok