Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904–91) was a Polish-born American Yiddish novelist and writer of short stories. This 1978 Nobel laureate in Literature is widely respected as the greatest post-World War II author of Yiddish literature. He oversaw the translation of his books into English.
Singer was born Icek Hersz Zynger in Radzymin, Poland, to a Hasidic rabbi and a pious mother. He immigrated to the United States before the Second World War. His Zlateh the Goat (1966) was the first of numerous well-received children’s books.
Singer’s artistic development is derived from his formative years. His fiction is populated with demons, spirits witches, angels, magicians, and other elements of fantasy and mysticism summoned in by his memories of his parents’ storytelling. His writing incorporates many motifs of Jewish folklore and is characterized by his simple style, rhythmic tempo, and vocally-tuned narrative outlines.
Singer won the 1974 U.S. National Book Award for A Day of Pleasure: Stories of a Boy Growing up in Warsaw (1969.) His other notable works include The Magician of Lublin (1955,) The Slave (1962,) Enemies: A Love Story (1972,) and Collected Stories (1982.) Many of Singer’s novels were made into movies. His short story Yentl, the Yeshiva Boy is the basis of the movie musical Yentl (1983) featuring Barbra Streisand.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Isaac Bashevis Singer
The New England conscience doesn’t keep you from doing what you shouldn’t—it just keeps you from enjoying it.
—Isaac Bashevis Singer
Topics: Enjoyment
Kindness, I’ve discovered, is everything in life.
—Isaac Bashevis Singer
Topics: Compassion, Kindness, Service
What nature delivers to us is never stale. Because what nature creates has eternity in it.
—Isaac Bashevis Singer
Topics: To Be Born Everyday, Nature, Creativity, Eternity
The second half of the twentieth century is a complete flop.
—Isaac Bashevis Singer
Topics: Present, The Present
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.
—Isaac Bashevis Singer
Topics: Power
A good writer is basically a story-teller, not a scholar or a redeemer of mankind.
—Isaac Bashevis Singer
Topics: Authors & Writing, Writers, Writing
Life is God’s novel. Let him write it.
—Isaac Bashevis Singer
Topics: God, Living Well
Our knowledge is a little island in a great ocean of non-knowledge.
—Isaac Bashevis Singer
Topics: Knowledge
The wastebasket is a writer’s best friend.
—Isaac Bashevis Singer
Topics: Writers, Authors & Writing, Writing
If you keep on saying things are going to be bad, you have a good chance of being a prophet.
—Isaac Bashevis Singer
Topics: Optimism, Health, Pessimism, Positive Attitudes
Originality is not seen in single words or even sentences. Originality is the sum total of a man’s thinking or his writing.
—Isaac Bashevis Singer
Topics: Originality
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.
—Isaac Bashevis Singer
Topics: Writing, Experience, Realistic Expectations, Creativity, Acceptance, To Be Born Everyday
Doubt is part of all religion. All the religious thinkers were doubters.
—Isaac Bashevis Singer
Topics: Religion, Doubt
The greatness of art is not to find what is common but what is unique.
—Isaac Bashevis Singer
Topics: Greatness, Originality, Innovation
We know what a person thinks not when he tells us what he thinks, but by his actions.
—Isaac Bashevis Singer
Topics: Thinking, Action
We must believe in free will — we have no choice.
—Isaac Bashevis Singer
Topics: Ideas, Life, Control
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