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 More Quotes by Chaim Potok More Quotes From Chaim Potok It is impossible to fuse totally with a culture for which you feel a measure of antagonism. Chaim Potok antagonism impossible culture I'm constantly revising. Once the book is written and typed, I go through the entire draft again. Chaim Potok revising written book It is inconceivable to me that a million or three million or half a million human beings will think and feel precisely the same way on any single subject. Chaim Potok three half thinking In Russia I went to a great yeshiva, and in America I work in a carnival. Chaim Potok carnivals russia america 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 good-art evil art Each work seems to give me the most trouble at the time I'm working on it. Chaim Potok give-me trouble giving 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 self christian years Well, in The Chosen, Danny Saunders, from the heart of his religious reading of the world, encounters an element in the very heart of the secular readings of the world - Freudian psychoanalytic theory. Chaim Potok well reading heart world And these two elements are at odds with one another because Freud is utterly adversary to almost all the ways of structuring the human experience found in Western religions. No Western religion can countenance Freud's view of man. Chaim Potok view man experience religion And yet there are some magnificent things from Freud, profound insights into the nature of man. Chaim Potok some things man nature Well, one hopes that if you're really related to the core of your particular culture, you have profound commitments to it, and that you are aware of how much you can strain it before you do violence to its essential nature. Chaim Potok you violence nature culture What I have in advance are people I want to write about and a problem or problems that I see those people encountering and that I want to explore - it all proceeds sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, and scene by scene. Chaim Potok problems see problem people
