Writing
Quotes
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Who were my mentors in poetry and literature? That is a matter of opinion. Some see in my books the influences of authors whose names, in my ignorance, I have not even heard, while others see the influences of poets whose names I have heard but whose writings I have not read.
Speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, 1966
The young artisans, tailors, and shoemakers, who used to sing my songs at their work, were killed in the First World War and of those who were not killed in the war, some were buried alive with their sisters in the pits they dug for themselves by order of the enemy, and most were burned in the crematories of Auschwitz with their sisters, who had adorned our town with their beauty and sung my songs with their sweet voices. The fate of the singers who, like my songs, went up in flame was also the fate of the books which I later wrote.
Speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, 1966
From whom did I receive nurture? Not every man remembers the name of the cow which supplied him with each drop of milk he has drunk.
Speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, 1966
There is another kind of influence, which I have received from every man, every woman, every child I have encountered along my way, both Jews and non-Jews. People's talk and the stories they tell have been engraved on my heart, and some of them have flown into my pen. It has been the same way with the spectacles of nature.
Speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, 1966
After all my possessions had been burned, God gave me the wisdom to return to Jerusalem. I returned to Jerusalem, and it is by virtue of Jerusalem that I have written all that God has put into my heart and into my pen.
Speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, 1966
I was five years old when I wrote my first song. It was out of longing for my father that I wrote it.
Speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, 1966
I don't know why I told this story. I could just as well have told another. Perhaps some other time I'll be able to tell another. Living souls, you will see how alike they are.
The Complete Short Prose, 1929-1989
Writers haven't got any rockets to blast off. We don't even trundle the most insignificant auxiliary vehicle. We haven't got any military might. So what can literature do in the face of the merciless onslaught of open violence? One word of truth outweighs the whole world.
A great writer is, so to speak, a second government in his country. And for that reason no regime has ever loved great writers, only minor ones.
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On Anger: "For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind."
Essays
Essays
On Destiny: "Our destiny exercises its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not learned its nature: it is our future that lays down the law of our today."
Human, All Too Human
Human, All Too Human
On Friendship: "A crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love."
Essays
Essays