…everything has a past. Everything – a person, an object, a word, everything. If you don’t know the past, you can’t understand the present and plan properly for the future. Chaim Potok More Quotes by Chaim Potok More Quotes From Chaim Potok I think that to a very great extent we are partners with the divine in this enterprise called history. That is an ongoing relationship, and there is absolutely no guarantee that things will automatically work out to our best advantage. Chaim Potok guarantees-that relationship thinking I will go wherever the truth leads me. It is secular scholarship, Rebbe; it is not the scholarship of tradition. In secular scholarship there are no boundaries and no permanently fixed views.” Lurie, if the Torah cannot go out into your world of scholarship and return stronger, then we are all fools and charlatans. I have faith in the Torah. I am not afraid of truth. Chaim Potok stronger views world A word is worth one coin, silence is worth two Chaim Potok coins silence two I think most serious writers, certainly in the modern period, use their own lives or the lives of people close to them or lives they have heard about as the raw material for their creativity. Chaim Potok creativity people thinking A non-fiction writer pretty much has the shape of the figure in front of him or her and goes about refining it. A work of non-fiction is not as difficult to write as a work of fiction, but it's not as satisfying in the end. Chaim Potok shapes writing fiction 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 agony writing discovery 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 different use people 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 gothic self needs Art is a person's private vision expressed in aesthetic forms. Chaim Potok vision form art It is when you are angry that you must watch how you talk. Chaim Potok angry watches 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 long-walks lunch break-up Reuven listen to me. The Talmud says that a person should do two things for himself. One is to acquire a teacher. Do you remember the other." "Choose a friend," I said. "Yes. You know what a friend is, Reuven? A Greek philosopher said that two people who are true friends are like two bodies with one soul." I nodded. "Reuven, if you can, make Danny Saunders your friend." "I like him a lot, abba." "No. Listen to me. I am not talking about only liking him. I am telling you to make him your friend and to let him make you his friend. Chaim Potok true-friend teacher two In other words, Judaism is not Calvinism. Chaim Potok judaism calvinism As a species we are always hungry for new knowledge. Chaim Potok hungry-for-knowledge hungry species Oh, it makes a difference, I thought. And if it doesn't make a difference you will make it make a difference. Chaim Potok making-a-difference differences ifs 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 modern-novel book world In our time ... a man whose enemies are faceless bureaucrats almost never wins. It is our equivalent to the anger of the gods in ancient times. But those gods you must understand were far more imaginative than our tiny bureaucrats. They spoke from mountaintops not from tiny airless offices. They rode clouds. They were possessed of passion. They had voices and names. Six thousand years of civilization have brought us to this. Chaim Potok passion winning men 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 alive reading order But today we become aware of other readings of the human experience very quickly because of the media and the speed with which people travel the planet. Chaim Potok media reading travel Yes, there is some thought about making a film of My Name Is Asher Lev. Chaim Potok film names
