All writing is presumption, of course, since no one knows what it is like to be another human being. Cynthia Ozick More Quotes by Cynthia Ozick More Quotes From Cynthia Ozick We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude. Cynthia Ozick thanksgiving thankful thank-you When something does not insist on being noticed, when we aren't grabbed by the collar or struck on the skull by a presence or an event, we take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude. Cynthia Ozick taken-for-granted gratitude skulls I would distinguish between a visitor and a pilgrim: both will come to a place and go away again, but a visitor arrives, a pilgrim is restored. A visitor passes through a place; the place passes through the pilgrim. Cynthia Ozick visitors going-away travel What we remember from childhood we remember forever - permanent ghosts, stamped, inked, imprinted, eternally seen. Cynthia Ozick childhood memories children If we had to say what writing is, we would have to define it essentially as an act of courage. Cynthia Ozick acts-of-courage ifs writing One must avoid ambition in order to write. Otherwise something else is the goal: some kind of power beyond the power of language. And the power of language, it seems to me, is the only kind of power a writer is entitled to. Cynthia Ozick ambition writing order After a certain number of years, our faces become our biographies. Cynthia Ozick numbers inspirational years The power of language, it seems to me, is the only kind of power a writer is entitled to. Cynthia Ozick language-and-power kind writing To want to be what one can be is purpose in life. Cynthia Ozick purpose dream want The butterfly lures us not only because he is beautiful, but because he is transitory. The caterpillar is uglier, but in him we can regard the better joy of becoming. Cynthia Ozick butterfly joy beautiful It is useless either to hate or to love truth - but it should be noticed. Cynthia Ozick useless hate truth Traveling is seeing; it is the implicit that we travel by. Cynthia Ozick seeing journey travel I'm not afraid of facts, I welcome facts but a congeries of facts is not equivalent to an idea. This is the essential fallacy of the so-called "scientific" mind. People who mistake facts for ideas are incomplete thinkers; they are gossips. Cynthia Ozick mistake people ideas To imagine the unimaginable is the highest use of the imagination Cynthia Ozick imagination use inspirational The engineering is secondary to the vision. Cynthia Ozick engineering vision inspirational To be any sort of competent writer one must keep one's psychological distance from the supreme artists. Cynthia Ozick distance psychological artist Novels are routinely denigrated when characters are not found to be likable. Is Raskolnikov likable? Is King Lear? The plethora of such naive readers testifies to a failure of imagination - the capacity to see into unfamiliar lives, motives, feelings - and this failure must, at least in part, be the failure of the teaching of literature in the schools. Cynthia Ozick teaching kings school Time heals all things but one: Time. Cynthia Ozick heal all-things time He who cries, 'What do I care about universality? I only know what is in me,' does not know even that. Cynthia Ozick cry care doe Paradise is only for those who have already been there. Cynthia Ozick paradise native-american
